Not All Masks Are For Carnival

***Since the vast majority of my new visitors are not bothering to read anything on my blog other than this one post, I have decided that the best way to get you to read my response is to do this.

Oh, by the way, your actions are proving my point.  In fact, your actions are carving my point into granite.***


Roughly two weeks ago, I had an unpleasant experience in the Twitterverse and blogged about it here.  If you are interested, please read the post titled Not All Masks Are For Carnival.  Now, the person who angered me has felt the need to respond with a post on their blog and comments on mine.  Mark also felt that it was appropriate to include a link to their site in his comments without asking me first.  I removed it not because I felt Mark does not have the right to respond but, because I feel that inserting a link without my permission was, in a word, rude.  The author seems to be very hung up on the subject of who is right.  Really,  how very White Male System.  Just what I wanted on my blog about my experiences.

If you are unfamiliar with the phrase, I urge you to read the book Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef.  The author explains the mentality of White Male System thinking far more eloquently than I could.  The book is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in feminism and I have, over the course of my life, passed out more copies than I care to remember.  Surprised that a woman who does what I do for a living is a feminist?  It is a problem I wrestle with each and every time I work and part of what I am working out in my blog.  It is also the reason I am so brutal with some of the callers.  If their fantasies involve more ugly stereotypes than I can stomach at that moment, I tend to let them know it.  With both barrels.

What is boils down to is that I really don't care if Mark feels that he is right.  I feel that I am right.  In my world view, both of us have valid perceptions of the experience we shared.  I suspect that in Mark's world view, that is not possible so he has set out to prove that he is right.  Okay, go for it.  Refrain from putting links on my blog.  I did not do so to yours.  In fact, I did not make any  comments on your blog.  Nor do I plan to.  The elderly gentlemen who inquired whether I not I charged Mark for the conversation in his comment made it clear to me that I have no desire to.  I deal with enough of that attitude when I am working, thank you.  Another man passing judgement about something he knows nothing about and thinking that he is cute.  Ah, no.  There are many words for that bit of bullshit, 'cute' is not what comes to mind.  I think that the author of that comment exactly the same as the callers I speak to and I've already shared my feelings about them.

I also found another comment by Bee C rather telling about the attitudes of the people involved.  Both Mark and this person feel that a transcript of the conversation was necessary.  I admit, the first version of Not All Masks Are For Carnival contained just that.  However, after consulting with friends and sleeping on it, I decided that to do so was childish and unnecessary.  I felt then as I feel now; my perception of the experience is valid because it is mine.  As I stated in my reply to Bee C, writing an unasked for critique and posting it in a public forum does require you to read the fucking material.  In the case of a blog, at least solid sampling of the material since most people will not have the time to read the entire thing.  I am also not asking the Internet community at large to pass judgement on that experience which is why I chose not to include a transcript or list Masquerade Crew by name.  I was blogging about my experiences, not inviting debate concerning the validity of my perceptions.  The fact that Bee C chose to interpret my posting that way is ...interesting, to say the least.

I chose to write about my experiences as a PSO to help me process them and to share with others some of the amazingly stupid stereotypes I have smacked myself into because of it.  I am not just talking about the callers.  Conscientious people ask questions before passing judgement on what I do and what I write about.

And then there is the rest of the world.


***And here is the original post***


Something very unsettling happened to me the other day.  I am on Twitter (@Wickedjulia if you would care to say hello) and I have noticed that the vast majority of what goes on at that site is Shameless Self Promotion.  Celebrities promote the movies and television shows they are involved in,  authors promote their books and other writing projects, politicians abound, and everyone seems to promote their favorite charities and causes.  For an information junkie like me, it is Sin City.  I joined Twitter after reading an article on indie publishing that encourages writers to promote their own works and, bloody hell, that article was right.  So I started taking baby steps in promoting my blog.

Nothing big, mind you.  I have been simply tweeting to my followers that there is a new entry (when there is one) and asking them to read it.  No phony reviews, no teaser sentences, just 'read my blog'.  One of the things that I find both amusing and annoying is how many people promote their own work with a "I'll follow you if you follow me" strategy.  At a certain level, it makes sense and is fair when they actually follow through on that.  Most do, temporarily; they follow for a bit and then disappear, so while one is essentially promoting the other by reading and possibly retweeting to their own followers any witticisms they find amusing, the other is doing nothing.  Which seems to be the culture of Twitter.

I decided to be a little more aggressive with my own Shameless Self Promotion.  After all, I have just as much right as anyone else, to try to showcase my writing.  And I want feedback, goddammit.  I want constructive criticism, o' friends of mine who read my blog and have nothing put in a comment but, will discuss the subject in person.  You know who you are.  No brownies for you until I get more comments.  (Like I'm actually going to follow through on that but, hey, it sounds like a credible threat.)  So when one of the 'people' I follow tweeted a promise to 'read yours if you read mine', I, jokingly, responded that I had been reading theirs and asked them if they had taken a look at mine.  I wasn't really expecting a response through Twitter.

Less than two minutes later, I got a fucking critique I didn't ask for through a social media forum.  The woman assumed that my lack of graphics was a conscious choice (it's not) and proclaimed the subject matter to not be her cup of tea.  At the end of that two sentence critique, she added that she would retweet my blog to her followers.   At this point, I am in shock, as I often am when someone I do not know is unconscionably rude to me.  Giving an unasked for criticism of my blog on Twitter struck me as more than a little trashy and, by the amount of time that had passed, I knew damn well that she had not read anything.  Wait, it gets better.  A second later, a mass tweet appears with my description of my blog pasted in it and an invitation to her followers to read if they are into that sort of thing.  Have you ever heard the phrase 'damning with faint praise'?

I sat there for a moment, rendered utterly speechless by the crude and blatant dismissal I have just received before I take several deep breaths and draft a civil response.  I state that I find her attitude unfortunate (while thinking it is revoltingly classist  and narrow-minded) and add that I enjoy reading about the lives of other people a great deal.  She lets me know that she doesn't enjoy reading things with an overtly erotic theme.  My thought in response is; Lady, have you actually read some of the romance stories you peddle on your site?  I have used a few of them as inspiration for work for the purpose of talking to pervs.

However, I am still struggling with desire to be polite so I advise her to read the first entry where I, rather tongue-in-cheek, explain the purpose of my blog without any explicit sexual descriptions.  I do not point out that the last two entries also lack anything sexually explicit.  She would know that if she had actually bothered to read instead of just glance around when she went to my site.  Which she, oh so obviously, didn't out of the assumption that I write porn and her eyeballs would melt if she were exposed to that subject matter.  My very first entry makes it quite clear that I am not advertising my services as a PSO, I am talking about my experiences in an industry that cloaks itself in fantasy to promote its services.  There are fake blogs out there, written to advertise the services of independent PSOs and, they are porn.  I refer to them as fucktress sites because the first one I saw started with the sentence "I am a 52 year old professional fucktress and I love..." and we can stop there.  You get the idea.

The truth is, I don't like the overtly explicit stuff either.  I have to listen to callers fabricate their fascinating, (and plagiarized) sexual histories in that language when I am working and after that, I am done.  I am a good enough PSO to not have to talk about my characters with that kind of language and most callers actually enjoy innuendo over Extreme Slut Mode.  In fact, I was speaking with one of the trainers last night about a schedule adjustment and she brought up the frustration she feels when new PSOs engage in that behavior.  The problem with that technique is that not only does it guarantee short calls for the PSO using it, Extreme Slut Mode  also conditions the callers to expect that sort of over the top, graphic porn storytelling right at the beginning of a call.  If the callers run into a PSO who takes the time to tailor a fantasy just for them or entertains them by showing her knowledge in another subject they are passionate about, pervs conditioned by PSOs who use Extreme Slut Mode get frustrated and verbally abusive.  They have been trained to expect to 'get happy' (as one friend describes it) within a couple of minutes by neophyte PSOs and they like it because it saves them money.  Whining about the cost of phone sex is a really common way for pervs to encourage a PSO to 'get to the good part' faster.  Another one is telling the PSO that they just got cut off from the other PSO they had been talking to and she's not available and he's so close and could the PSO he is now speaking to just help him out....Yeah, I fell for that one.  Once. At the beginning, when I was still thinking about being a PSO as similar to customer service.  I learned very quickly that it is not.

See what I did there?  I described a facet of the industry while discussing another subject to, hopefully, illustrate my point.  I admit I do that a lot.  The woman I have been tweeting with informs me that she has read my first entry (liar) and basically demands that I point her to the one non-existent post that discusses the industry without anything that might scorch her delicate soul.  I try to explain that the industry doesn't work that way, its not like anyone emailed me a manual titled How We Lie To Callers 101.  I had to figure this out on my own, for the most part, and am talking about it here.  And how frustrating it is, and silly, and stupid....  Alas, Twitter is not conducive to lengthy explanations and she loses patience or decides that she has proven her point about the content of my blog and stops communicating with me.

The last thing I sent her was a direct message because, unlike some, I feel that it is inappropriate to point out a person's less than stellar behavior in public.  I tell her that I found her snap judgement of me disappointing and hurtful.  I do not mention, in this last tweet, how insulted I am.  I assume (and perhaps I shouldn't) that she is smart enough to get that.  I have been in a position when I was required to pass judgement on another's artistic output.  I was a sculptor before an injury forced me to relegate my passion to a hobby.  I once took a class taught by a famous bronze sculptor who insisted that I help with project reviews because I was the only other working artist in a room full of students.  I remember the painful diplomacy I used when dealing with those young artists.  I had no desire to insult them or the subject they were trying to communicate through their work.  I wanted to provide those artists with an honest critique that would help them develop their skills.  At the same time, I wanted to let the 'easy A' students know that I was on to their tricks and they were no longer in high school.  Art, in any media, is bloody hard work and no one has a right to dismiss that effort without even looking at it.

In other words, Madam, not only have you failed as a promoter of art in the form of writing, you have failed as a human being.

Questions? Comments?

I was chatting with a friend a few days ago, catching up with her because she had been M.I.A for a few days.  She is an artist and craftsperson: when she is getting ready for a show I don't expect to hear from her.  We also read each others blogs and she is one of three people who have left comments on mine.  Much love to Kai for that alone.  Invariably, we got to the subject of my job and once again, I had someone apologizing to me for asking questions about the Mechanics of Phone Sex.  She is far from the first person to feel that she has to apologize for being curious.  Once again, I assured someone that I really don't mind answering questions about my experiences as a PSO or explaining what little I know about how the industry works.  In fact, my attitude is the exact opposite.

For fucks sake, ask questions.  If you're curious, if you are thinking about becoming a PSO, if you are a caller and want to know something about the people who entertain you, ask fucking questions.  If I have the answer and I feel that it is appropriate to give it to you, I will.  To clarify, if you ask for private information (like how to contact me for a one on one) I am going to tell you to fuck off.  If you ask for something I am uncomfortable relaying such as the details of a particular caller's fantasy, I will say 'no'.  If you just want to know about how the whole mess works, I'll give you the best answer I can.  Why? Because I feel that, having crossed this particular threshold, I owe to other women to share the information I have gathered.

When I started looking into becoming a PSO, the one thing that drove me up the wall was the profound lack of credible, first hand information available.  Multiple Google searches finally led me to the staffing company I now use but, I filled out 'applications' online for six or seven different companies who never bothered to call me back.  One of the thing that I hate about PSO recruiting is that staffing companies want women to fill out applications without providing a great deal of their company contact information.  They do this to avoid being harassed by pervert callers trying to score freebie phone sex.  One trainer who used to do staffing told me a hilarious story about having a perv call into the staffing line and immediately launch into his fantasy over and over again.  Attempts to explain to him that he was calling the office and there were no PSOs there to handle his call failed miserably.  He would just talk over her, telling her about his huge, hard cock and ordering her to suck it while smacking his lips and moaning loudly.  She tried having his number blocked and he called from a different number, bitching at her for blocking him and going right back to the same, dumbass routine.  Then she got a police whistle and started blasting his eardrums every time he called.  It took nearly two months of constant auditory assault to finally get rid of him and he called multiple times a day.

Even before I found the staffing company, I would try to read articles about phone sex on question and answer sites despite the fact I was pretty sure that answers offered were utter bullshit.  Turns out I was right about that one.  My favorite was a woman who had been turned down by a staffing company because she didn't have a landline and wanted to know if that was true of all phone sex companies.  The person who answered her question admitted right from the beginning that she was not a PSO, had never been a PSO, and didn't know any PSOs but, still felt she was qualified to answer.  Her response was that "Of course, you can use a cell phone.  They shouldn't have a problem with cell phones.  No one uses landlines anymore.  They shouldn't expect you to have one."  Great, a brilliant (and totally wrong) answer from a cell phone snob.

The real answer is more complicated than that. Officially, yes, a PSO must use a landline.  Cellphones are not secure enough.  It is possible for people to listen in on cell conversations pretty easily and one of the things offered to callers is anonymity.  Callers can use cell phones and I really wish they wouldn't.  PSOs must use landlines with unlimited long distance service.  They don't like PSOs using VOIP lines either, though, most of us do.  We just didn't admit to that fact on the application.  The problem is software compatibility.  Most of the really cheap VOIP services out there, like Magic Jack, are just not compatible with the software used by the hosting service to track a PSO's time.  And the whole point of talking to pervs is getting paid for it.  Why would any woman listen to their dumbass, bullshit fantasies if they weren't getting paid?

The truth is that the staffing companies will allow a PSO to use a cellphone if she lives in a major, urban center with fantastic coverage, has a really good quality phone in good working order, and understands that she cannot go out while she is working.  That movie where Anne Hathaway plays a PSO who routes calls to the office line where she is temping and takes calls while standing outside of a restaurant is total bullshit.  The hosting companies do monitor all calls for new operators and almost all calls for experienced operators.  Some just monitor everything.  I work for two different hosting companies and they have the exact same rules for a PSO's work environment.  You have to be completely alone; no boyfriend or husband listening in on your calls, absolutely no kids hanging around, no dogs barking.  I have gotten in trouble with the first hosting company for the monitor hearing back round noise on my calls and assuming that I was not alone.  Once, when I was sitting next to an open window and my neighbors were talking loudly.  I got up and moved when I heard it but, the monitor didn't know that.  The other time when the supervisor heard me talking to one of my dogs between calls and assumed that I was talking to a small child.  Since she was a puppy at the time, I can understand why the Downer thought I was speaking to a child.  The fact that s/he recorded the call and played it back for the staffing company as proof that I was breaking the rules in an attempt to get me thrown off the lines without ever asking me what was going on is just further proof that s/he is a dick.  Luckily, the staffing company knows I have dogs because I talk about them when we speak and told the Downer to chill the fuck out.  That's when the hosting company came up with the 'no barking dogs' rule.  Fuckwits.  The few time a caller has heard my dogs barks, they have laughed about it and started telling me about their own dogs.  It is a great conversation starter.

Another rule that blows the minds of the curious.  No computer use.  The staffing and hosting companies are right to ask this but, there is no goddamned way they can enforce it.  The reason it is a good idea for a PSO to stay the fuck off her computer while she is working?  The caller can tell when you are distracted.  No, really.  Everyone I tell this to doesn't believe me.  They understand what I am talking about but, assure me that they are completely capable of answering their emails, playing a game, and bullshitting on Facebook with friends while talking to someone on the phone.  What are you, a mutant? No?  Then, listen to me.   The concept of multitasking is a corporate myth perpetuated to make us do the work of four people while collecting a paycheck for one.  The human brain simply does not work that way.  What it does do is shift from one task to another over and over again at an incredible rate of speed.  The problem is that while concentrating on one task, like making an incredibly witty comment about friend's new haircut, a PSO is not actively paying attention the other things she is doing while she is entertaining her buddies instead of concentrating on the caller. And most of the pervs can tell when a PSO is not paying attention to them.  That is not what they are paying for so they hang up and tank her call time average.

Does that mean I stay off my computer when I am working?  Hell no!  There can be a hell of a lot of wait time between calls and I get bored easily.  I am also not putting up with this bullshit to act like I am still working at the same fucked up answering service I worked at years ago where, yes, management really did expect operators to sit in their cubicles staring at their screens while waiting for the next call and not speaking to each other unless it was work related.  I broke those rules every day without a qualm.  There is no way I am imposing draconian restrictions on myself now, no matter how much the hosting company tries to enforce it.  And they do try.  I can't say I feel really sorry for the PSOs who have gotten caught.  They were the ones dumb enough to leave the sound on.  However, when I get a call, I am not looking at my computer.  I deliberately turn my back to it or turn off the screen so I can concentrate on the caller and I had to learn to do this the hard way.

One night, I got a caller with the absolute worst coprophilia fantasy I have ever heard, even worse that the Acolyte's.  If you don't know what coprophilia is, look it up.  It is one of two fetishes that will actually make me vomit, so I ain't talking about it unless I'm getting paid.  Of course, this perv also happened to be a Sneaky Bastard so he didn't warn me ahead of time so I could ditch him.  So, he starts talking about a subject that is literally making me gag and I am wondering how the hell I am going to get through the call without vomiting.  Luckily, he's a Talker.  I don't have to actively participate in his fantasy, I just have to make the right noises in measured intervals to convince him that I am paying attention.  I get a bright idea, switch on my computer and start playing a fairly intensive game while listening to him.  It works, my brain stops trying to conjure up images to match his words so I stop gagging and I can follow what he is saying enough to moan and groan and beg him to use me any way he wants so I can prove my devotion to him.  Yes, that was the gist of his fantasy.  I get a really long call out of the Sneaky Bastard and a revelation.  I can entertain myself on the computer while working! Yah!  Ticker tape parade for me!

Wrong.  I start goofing around on the computer while I am working, all the time, and my call time average starts to slip.  The Downer is griping at me, I know I am not making enough money and I start to get really unhappy.  Time to rethink this.  I can use this trick with a Talker or a caller I know really well but, I have to stop splitting my attention on every call.  It is not working.  Talking to a caller requires active listening and I cannot do it while on the computer but, there is no way I am giving up being on the computer while I am working.  So I started turning my back to the screen while talking to the pervs.  It worked.  I still have the computer and I can pull my average up to make more money.  Problem solved and I still get to play.

The thing is I am different from other PSOs in this regard.  My mother was married to a man who taught speech and communication skills at the college level while I was pretty young.  He decided to prove a point to a class full of particularly dense freshmen by trying to teach the same active listening skills he was teaching them to his nine year-old step daughter.  I aced the final exam which involved listening to a recording of a technical lecture given by another professor with a thick Indian accent while answering questions about the lecture on a score sheet.  Most of those college students didn't even get a passing grade from that exam.  He proved his point and I acquired a skill that has served me very well my entire life.

Most PSOs have no idea what active listening is when they start and they have to learn it quickly to be successful.  Most people have no idea what actively listening is.  If you don't know, look it up and learn it.  It will give your communication skills an edge few people actually possess anymore.

And it's a fun trick at parties.

TVTS

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In Dreams

My problems with sleep are legendary among my friends.  I typically sleep in no more than 4 hour increments separated by hours of useless wakefulness.  I can't really call most of those moments being awake.  During the summer, it gets worse.  My periods of sleep are reduced to 2 hours and literally anything can wake me.  My happy, noisy, rested neighbors compete for the top of my annoyance list right along with the happy, noisy, rested birds who like to hang outside my open bedroom window and live their little bird lives at top volume.  I guess they feel the need to share.

The reason I am telling you this?  Well, something strange happened while I was trying to catnap, again.  My chronic pain suddenly ratcheted up from about a 2 (meaning I am just sort of aware of my many failing joints) to about a 6 (meaning I am crawling out of my skin with discomfort, my joins feel like their being crushed and I am ready and willing to snap anyone's head off for breathing too loudly in my general direction) without warning and catapulted my out of the light doze I was in.  While I was laying there, cursing my existence, I realized that I had been dreaming about a caller I spoke to yesterday.

That was strange.  I have never dreamed about my job as a PSO, before.  It was inevitable, I suppose.  I always end up dreaming about my jobs, whatever they happen to be, because I have a habit of obsessing about being good at my job.  When I stop obsessing about being good at my job, it is a sure sign that I am bored out of my mind and that it is time to move on before I start hating my  job.  I just wasn't expecting to dream about being a PSO because it is so different from any other job I have ever had.  If nothing else, the fact that I work at home makes the environment completely different from my other jobs.  I have also had very limited contact with the other people I work with and have never seen them face to face.  Which, in my humble opinion, beats being plunged into whatever office drama is taking place no matter how hard I try to avoid it.

In my dream, the caller was bitching me out for trashing his fantasy and refusing to play along.  Gee, what a surprise.  He explained to me, in the dream, that even though he was presenting his fantasy as an actual experience, I should have known that it was just a fantasy and played along.  To be fair to myself, I did play along until he ordered me to spank myself so he could judge how hard I could spank others.  Hmm...no.  I know the caller was hoping to run into a cute little college girl who felt like she had done something terrible and needed to be punished but, that's not going to happen with me.  I wasn't set up to Dolby the sound of someone being spanked and didn't feel like striking my own flesh to get the desired sound so this creep could get off.  Plus, I was playing that cute, little college girl as a lighthearted Domme.  She ain't gonna follow orders, bub.  She's going to laugh at you and say "No."  What the hell do you think you can do about it, caller?  Hang up on me, is what he did and I was not unhappy with the outcome.  I had taken his fantasy about as far as I was willing to and I was not in the mood to play submissive with a high maintenance caller.

His fantasy just lingered in my mind because the whole thing was so weird.  He started by telling me that he had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute and his life was being demolished because of it.  Legal fees, possible eviction for his business on a moral clause, wife left him, etc.  All of it sounded plausible but, I'm a lawyer's kid.  Some of the details he offered set off my bullshit alert but, I let it slide.  Then he starts talking about his stepdaughter.  Hear that beeping noise?  That's the bullshit meter cranking up into the red.  According to the caller, his stepdaughter is in her early 20's and in college.  He is paying her tuition as long as she maintains her grades and does a few other things he has demanded of her.  He didn't go into details.  If his story is legitimate; it might be living on campus, or being involved in certain social groups or going to counseling.  The truth is my bullshit meter was beeping so loudly that I can't think to ask.  He tells me that she hasn't been keeping up her end of the bargain and has been lying about it.  He can't stand lairs and decided that she has to be punished.  Okay, here we go.  He tells her that she has to accept a  bare bottom spanking from him or he will stop paying for her tuition and, according to him, she agrees to it.

You have got to be kidding me.  He then goes onto explain that he lives in a condo complex with a lot of single mothers and many of these women pay him to discipline their daughters.  And the daughters involve agree to it.  The caller gives me details about how he has the mothers sign a liability waiver to protect himself and all I can think is bullshit, Bullshit, BULLSHIT!  There is no way in hell I am going to believe that an entire condo complex full of women have lost their collective minds and pay this creep to spank their daughters for his own sexual gratification.  Because, despite how he is describing his behavior as clinically as possible and for the girl's own good, it is very obvious that this bastard gets off on it.  And the idea that an 18 year old girl would submit to this is laughable.  Even if a girl is into being spanked and many of them are (see the popularity of the book, 50 Shades of Gray), I sincerely doubt many of them would consent to being spanked by a 60 year old man for his own sexual pleasure and at their mother's request.  That is just fucked up.

I dance around the subject.  After several minutes of discussion, I finally find a way to ask him if he worries about any of the girls reporting him to authorities.  Not at all, he tells me and reminds me that he has all those waivers from their mothers.  Uh-huh.  All I can think of is what my reaction would have been if my parents or their partners or my extended family suggested that I be 'professionally spanked' for any of my adolescent transgressions.  (Trust me when I say, there were far too many cooks in the kitchen where my childhood is concerned.)  I would have blown a gasket.  Hell, I would have had a complete nuclear meltdown that could have been seen from space.  And I would have called the cops, child protective services and the child's rights attorney, Andrew Vachss to report the bastards before I beat feet out the door while flipping the bird over my shoulder.  My reaction would have been total devastation for all involved and I am not kidding in the slightest.

I told a friend about this and she played Devil's Advocate by pointing out that my personality guaranteed an over the top response.  She could see girls being coerced into this type of scenario quite easily.  She just had a hard time accepting that any parent would agree to it.  I can concede her point.  God knows my own parents constantly relied on others to actually do the work of raising me and because of that, I suffer from what many consider an alarming lack of family loyalty.  We both still dismiss this caller's story as fantasy bullshit.  If a girl is into being submissive and somehow, advertises the fact that she is looking for a Dom to spank her, she will be buried in offers within a day.  There are Doms all over the world languishing for a cute teenage girl to spank.  She most certainly will not have to have her mother pay for it.  In fact, it is far more common for the Dom to pay the submissive.  There are even spanking parties where men pay professional submissives who will allow men to spank them for sexual titillation.  Invitations to those parties comes with a pretty hefty price tag.  Professional submissives are very expensive.

It goes like this: among heterosexuals, there is a 70/30 split for women.  Meaning that 70% of women into BDSM want a man to dominate them.  The remaining 30% are more like me, Dommes. Only about half of those are what some people call extreme Dommes, women who do not exchange power by 'switching' or playing sub.  I guess I could be called extreme except that I am willing to have Vanilla sex with the right person.  However, I am not interested in ever being submissive.  Ever.  It turns me off, completely, and utterly enrages me to be asked after I have explained to a lover what I am.  Which is why I spun out a story to this caller describing myself as a low key Domme who dominates other women, professionally.  I guessed, correctly, that this caller had no interest in hearing about a man being dominated by a woman.  I screwed up once and mentioned that I dominated 'boys and girls at their request'.  He immediately told me that he didn't want to hear about the boys.  He wanted details and I provided them, thank you, Vagina Monologues.

That's where things broke down.  Like so many men, this caller could not reconcile the idea that there are women out there with absolutely no interest in being spanked by a man.  He believes the porn fantasy that every woman secretly wants to be dominated and just needs to meet the man of her dreams so she can submit herself to his desires and be utterly happy doing so.  Maybe such a woman exists.  I am not her.  None of my deepest, darkest, personal fantasies have ever involved being dominated by anyone and a dumbass like that caller is not the man who is going to change my mind.

Sorry.

Uses For The Dead

I will warn you right now that I am going to be discussing a subject that many people will find revolting.

I was talking to her friend about her experiences using an internet dating site.  She told me a man asked my friend to tell him what was the kinkiest thing she has ever done while she was signed in and chatting with members.  When she did not immediately launch into a raunchy story about her sexual exploits, he told her that she wasn't kinky enough for him and closed the chat window.

I laughed my ass off when she told me.  The man was behaving like a perv, a caller, trying to score some free text sex by using a dating site instead of paying for it on a phone sex line.  She assumes that she will never hear from him again.  I disagree.  I think that this bottom feeder will contact her again, hoping that he has managed to shame her into coming up with a story to impress him.

As a PSO, I hear "What is the kinkiest/dirtiest/nastiest thing you have ever done?" all the time.  How the hell would you answer that question if a complete stranger asked you?  I know that the first thing you would do is decide whether or not to answer at all.  You would judge the person asking and decide whether or not he deserved an answer.  Then you might wrack your brain for an answer that doesn't make you sound too slutty while still sounding like a lot of fun, if you like the guy.

Ladies, stop doing that.  Creeps like this are saying one thing when they ask you this question.  They are ordering you to entertain them and prove that you are worthy of their attention.  It doesn't matter if you are a PSO working the line, using a dating site, or talking to this jackass in a bar.  You are dealing with a spoiled, petulant boy demanding a story, not an adult man.

Here is my response:

"What is the kinkiest/dirtiest/nastiest thing you have ever done?" the caller asks as soon as introductions are made.

"Oh, I'm not sure I should tell you," I respond with a giggle.  "I'm really kinky and what I'm into... well, it's illegal."

"Oh, I want someone really kinky, tell me," the caller demands.

"I'm into necrophilia," I say in a breathy whisper.

"What's that?"

"I'm really into dead things so..." I say with a smile.  "Fuck off and die."

May I Place My Hands On Your Buttocks?

Years ago, I watched a skit on Saturday Night Live, a parody of a college campus policy concerning sexual consent.  It was Mike Myers and Ellen Cleghorn as two student players stiffly acting out an intimate encounter that would be in compliance with the school's new policy.

"May I place my hands on your buttocks?" asks Mike Myers as character.

"Please, I would like you to place your hand on my buttocks," responds Ellen Cleghorn's character with a nervous giggle.

I laughed my ass off when I saw that.  I thought that the college that instituted that policy had lost their collective minds.  I thought a policy where the man literally is expected to ask at every step of seduction whether or not the woman he is with wants him to touch her in a particular way was ridiculous and unenforceable and frankly, insulting.  Now, I think that college was ahead of the times and trying to address a basic disparity in male/female sexuality that most people are still unwilling to address in their own minds.

I was talking to a caller when I remembered the skit.  He is one of the many, anonymous, white males I speak to on a regular basis.  His voice is not memorable and I suspect that he uses different names.  He's a talker, not really interested in fantasy, just wants a PSO to agree with him.  After speaking with him several times, I realized that not only is this man an incredibly selfish bastard and I pity any woman who ends up in bed with him, he's also kind of the norm.  Most of what we talk about is pretty Vanilla.  He certainly has that middle-aged white male's sense of entitlement.  He asked me what I am into, sexually.  My reply of "Domination," with a great deal of relish seemed to throw him off balance.  He asked me for details and, trust me, I gave him a few while enjoying his discomfort with the topic.  He asked if I ever got into normal sex.  "You mean Vanilla? Well, sometimes," I replied, letting the disdain drip from my voice.  "If I'm with a guy who can't handle being dominated..."

He seemed to have a real hard time with the whole concept.  I will admit that I am being a jerk to these guys when I figure out what they want from a PSO and then, perversely, refuse to give it to them.  This jackass is a Dom, he just is a very mild Dom and doesn't know it.  A lot of men fall into this category.  They assume that the woman they are with is into doing exactly what they want to do without ever asking the woman what she is into.  He kept circling around the subject of Domination, trying to find a way to make my preference something he could tolerate.  (On a side note, this conversation is why callers should never ask for a PSO to tell the truth.  They really don't want to hear it.) He asked if I was ever submissive with a man.  "Never, turns me off," I told him.  "Never submissive with a girl, either.  Not a sub, not a switch," and then, of course, I had to explain what the words meant.

I will give this caller credit, he obviously enjoyed something about talking to me because he kept bloody well trying to find some common ground.  He asked if I enjoyed oral sex.  Of course, I love to tie a man to my bed and spend hours teasing him with my hands and my mouth.  He asked if I liked having a man hold my head and ram his cock into my mouth and I laughed at him.  "Good way for a man to get bit," I said.  He decided to ignore that statement and asked if I was into anal sex.  No.  That answer surprised him.  He told me that he thought that I should be because of what I do for a living.  What the fuck?

Here's the thing; sex workers know that their clients are into anal sex so they tell them that they are too, regardless of how they actually feel about the subject.  I have talked to some sex workers about this and their response is usually "No, doesn't do a thing for me but, the freaks are into it so I pretend to be, too."  I asked my gay friends what they think about straight men into anal sex and got an earful.  In their opinion, straight men are terrible at anal sex.  One friend said "Never let a straight man fuck you in the ass, they don't know what they're doing," and all my other friends agreed with him including the one who has a thing for picking up straight guys.  He told me that he always penetrates his strait lovers first so they learn how to do it right before he allows them to penetrate him.  In fact, it's a deal breaker if they refuse, as far as he is concerned.  If they refuse, their intimate encounter and their entire relationship with my friend is over from that moment on.  He laughed at my surprise and went onto to explain that experience had taught him that most straight men who are into anal sex get off on causing their partners physical pain.  Not a lot but, the physical discomfort they are causing their lover is certainly part of their enjoyment.

The other thing that I learned that night is that gay men tend to talk about their former lovers much more honestly than straight women do.  Most of my friends were single but, not all of them, and even the 'married' ones tended to analyze their lovers' performance.  (Please don't think that I am against gay marriage.  The opposite is true and the strides this country has made in my lifetime are wonderful but, we still have a long way to go.  That conversation took place when the idea of gay marriage was a blip on the horizon.)  The best part is that they shared information; who was good, who was bad, who was dangerous.  I found out that one of my friends had a hardcore foot fetish.  Another came with a warning label that he was very well endowed and liked very rough sex.  He turned bright red blushing but, admitted it was true as his friends and former lovers teased him.  I discovered that a man I had assumed was gay was actually bi-sexual and had a crush on me but, was too shy to admit it.  More on that some other time.

Thinking back on that night, I wonder why women aren't more honest with each other about their lovers.  Certainly, we do not imagine that we are going to make a life long commitment to all of them, making such information irrelevant to our friends.  At least, that is the ideal that we hope for with our long term commitments.  My friends acknowledged that there are many men out there who believe that once a person consents to sex, that's it.  It's a done deal.  Those men seem to feel that consent is surrender and once it is given, they are allowed to do whatever they please without asking their partner's consent for anything else.  One of my friends described his first time as rape; he met a man at the club, took the person home with the intention of having a very heavy make out session with oral sex.  Instead, his lover pinned him down and sodomized him without ever asking my friend if that was what he wanted.  My friend told me that he had been too shocked to protest at the time it had happened and I believed him.  I remember the first time a boy grabbed my tits and how shocked I was and how powerless I felt.  I was forced to learn (very quickly) as a teenage girl to fend off male fondling with knees, elbows and a very loud voice.  Then and now, I am infuriated at the necessity.

As a Domme, I always have a lengthy conversation about limitations with my would be lovers before we play.  Yes, I lied to the caller and every caller who is stupid enough to ask about my personal life, I do enjoy Vanilla sex.  Not every sexual encounter needs to be about dominance.  However, I have also learned that I need to be very straightforward and fast about what I will tolerate.  Perhaps it is because of my taste in men but, it feels like I always have to make my boundaries very clear, suddenly and without warning, because my lover will decide that he wants to try something and not bother to discuss it with me first.   My most memorable misunderstanding was years ago when a lover slapped my breasts, without warning.  I discovered, later, that watching a woman's breasts bounce and redden after striking them was his thing.  It turned him on.  Surprising a woman with his actions was part of the turn on.  Being kneed in the groin by a woman with fast reflexes and powerful legs, however, was not part of his fetish.  Nor was being kicked in the sternum while being called vile names and having his clothes flung on top of his prone body.  We calmed down enough to bitch at each other, quickly enough.

"What the hell is your problem? I told you I wasn't into that shit!" he said, meaning BDSM.

"What the hell made you think I would enjoy being hit without warning, you dumb motherfucker," my question.

"It's sexy! What the hell is your problem?  Are you frigid?"

A moment of complete silence while I stare at this idiot, bemused at the depth of his arrogance and stupidity. I chuckle at myself.  Lust does blind us all, at one time or another.  A shake of my head.  "You know what?  We are done.  Get the fuck out.  You are not worth the effort."

That bothered him enough to act like a bucket of cold water.  He calmed down enough to apologize for his actions and asked me what I meant.  I calmed down and explained that slapping a woman's breasts without discussing one's taste in BDSM first was not appropriate.  I was shocked to discover that he did not consider his actions to fall under the category of BDSM.  He was shocked to discover that I did not find his actions 'sexy' and had no interest in just going along with it because it was what he wanted to do.  He stated that no other lover had ever complained about his actions before.  I didn't believe him then and told him so.  I do believe him now.

As far as I can tell, women are programmed by our culture to nurture male ego constantly and at all levels from our girlhood onward.  We would like to think that things have changed and they have, just not enough.  Most men have no idea how much they are protected from criticism by this behavior because they can dismiss the few women who do offer criticism as bitches and go back to business as usual.  In a way, my job as a PSO is to bolster male ego about their sexual performance and I do, most of the time.  However, there are more than a few callers who have gotten my evaluation on their fantasy sexual performance in the harshest, most uncensored terms possible.  Usually, I reserve my comment to a simple "No" and then explain if they ask.  Others have gotten "Wow, way to kill the mood," in response to callers demanding that I 'COME! NOW!'.  As if there is a button I can press to have an instant (and loud) orgasm.  Or "Jesus, that is so not sexy," to a few descriptions of dumbass behavior that would get them hurt in a face to face encounter.

I find the knowledge that many women, myself included, tend to coddle our lovers in real life horribly sad.  Why are we doing this?  I can understand not wanting to offer an ongoing critique of his or hers performance during an intimate encounter but, why not mention the things we didn't like afterwards?  I have no problem stopping someone from causing me pain or discomfort, it is the subtleties that cause me to stay silent.  Yet, I know that I have hurt the men I have been with by simply letting them drop from my life when they have displeased me instead of talking to them.  I just didn't consider them worth the effort to speak to.  Experience has taught me that the conversation will end in an argument with insults thrown my way nine times out of ten.  Still, shouldn't women warn each other?  Why not talk freely about our ex-lovers among ourselves; the good and the bad?

And dammit, that university was right all along.  Men should stop and ask their lovers if it is okay before they stick their fingers, tongues, cocks or opinions anywhere they might not be welcome.

Crazy

Conversation with caller:

"We're almost out of time," caller said with an apologetic sigh.

"Yeah, I know," I respond in sexy, intimate-sounding voice.  Like I haven't been keeping an eye on the clock and chortling, internally, at my success.  Another long call to push my call time average up and listening to this caller bitch about his life has been very little effort on my part.  Every PSO's dream call.  "I really wish we had more time.  I love talking to you."  Always encourage the good ones to call back.

"Will I be able to find you again?"

"Well, I'll hang on for a little while..." Complete and utter bullshit.  I signed up for an 8 hour shift and I have 7 hours to go but, it's not good to remind a caller that this is my job.  They get all wounded and pouty when I point out that I am paid for my attention.  "Please try to find me.  I would love to finish our conversation."  You got distracted and forgot to ask for a sexual fantasy, caller.  Wouldn't you  love to fix that mistake with me?

"Oh yeah.  It's just that you are so easy to talk to," caller said with a self-pitying sigh.  "Most women are just too crazy to talk to..."

And the caller timed out before I could call him a stupid motherfucker.  Thank god.

Women are crazy.  I'm crazy.  My friends are crazy.  I come from a long line of crazy women.  I might be able to hide it better than most because the universe has blessed me with a lack of sexual predators in my life but, trust me, I am still crazy.  I consider the 2 times in my life where I managed to evade a man chasing me concrete proof that there is a god.  The first time was when I was a child and a man who refused to respond to my greeting yet kept circling the area where I was waiting for my friends finally resorted to chasing me through a large park/nature preserve area until I ran into a large gathering of hippies having a picnic.  The second time was dealing with my stalker at the moment I realized 2 things while siting in the dark because of thunderstorm induced power outage.  1, no one believed that I had never been involved with this man therefore his fascination with me was a complete bafflement and 2, if I didn't leave now he was going to figure out which house I lived in and I wouldn't be able to stop him from breaking in and doing whatever he wanted to with me.  My stalker is an ex-Marine with a history of mental health issues.  He is also a foot taller than I am and has about a hundred pounds more muscle than I do.  Helpful suggestions like 'buy a gun' are not so helpful when the man who scares you is a fucking combat trained soldier.

As scared as I was, I still kept in mind that I was luckier than most of the women I know.  I had (and have) never been sexually assaulted directly other than having my tits grabbed more times than I can count.  Why the hell our culture thinks that a woman with big tits is asking for them to get grabbed by a complete stranger by just being alive is something I will never understand.  I was not sexually assaulted as a child even though my family was criminally neglectful.  I was not sexually assaulted as an adult (knock on wood) even though my 'fuck off and die' attitude tends to attract men who think I want to be 'broken'.  I have never been in a physically or sexually abusive relationship though there were more than a couple who have tried. The poor bastards were completely shocked when I walked out of their lives without looking back as a result of their actions.  I have endured the many slings and arrows our culture dishes out to women to keep us under control and yes, that has made me crazy.

And I have known a lot of crazy women with stories from their own past that are almost too horrible to believe.  Rapes, beatings, verbal abuse so foul it is a wonder and a testament to their strength that they are still alive, neglect so inhumane that their parents should have imprisoned for life, sexual exploitation.  It is no wonder that women have trust issues; many of us are survivors and the ones that aren't have friends who are.  We know that we might be one encounter from a horrible, life altering experience that could destroy us.  I don't want to be told that I'm being 'unreasonable' when a man acts like a creepazoid and makes my hackles rise.  I want a man who understands when I need him to back off, change the subject, or just be quiet and let me rant about the unfairness of life.  He doesn't have to fix anything, just understand that listening is the fix.  Give women the benefit of the doubt and understand that irrational moments do not make women universally irrational.

Or just continue to be a judgmental asshat and see how often you get laid.