Peek of the Week for April 29th

Sent to me in an email forward called "Why You Should Always Twirl Once Before the Mirror" by a very conservative co-worker. Talk about a peek!

Abby is Lusting For: This unusual pearl ring. I'm not much of a wearer of jewelry, but this ring is something else. Literally. Turn the ring in so that the pearls are palm-side and you have one very expensive sex toy! I'm curious as to how it would feel on my own body, but I'm honestly dying to try it on Mr. W. Sadly, unless the whole world decides they need to purchase the entire contents of my clip store, a $750 ring is not in my future. Check out Coco de Mer for this and other objets d'amour. They even have whips made of human hair. (Thanks to Miss Tori for the link!)

Abby is Fascinated By: The fetish artwork of Joe Shuster, aka The Creator of Superman. Apparently, after selling the rights to Superman for $130, Shuster drew a series of graphics for a naughty story magazine called Nights of Horror. Read about it here and here.

Abby is Reading: The back of a Starbucks cup. It's titled "The Way I See It #76" and is a quote about commitment credited to "Anne Morriss, a Starbucks customer from New York City." The quote reads as follows:

"The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."

This reminds me of a passage from Story of O. As soon as I find it, I will post it here.

Punchline to a Bad Day

Why are these panties also a punchline? Read about my bad day yesterday.

Some days, it seems that nothing is going right.

When I took a break at work and called you in the afternoon, just to say hi, you listened to me tell you about the day I was having and then gently asked me, "Are you going to be ok?" Tears welled up in my eyes. That little bit of kindness nearly broke me, so we got off the phone with hopes for a better night.

After arriving at home, I was still a nervous wreck. I paced the house, I fidgeted. You came home and told me about your own bad day, then began to pace as well. We tried talking, tried coming up with a plan, tried talking about what to have for dinner. Finally I stood by the couch, exhausted, wanting to lie down and go to sleep when it was only six o'clock.

You stopped pacing too and stood before me. You took my hands in yours and kissed my forehead, then my lips. Still close to my face, you whispered, "Turn around." I did, and you led me to the side of the couch. You touched the small of my back. I knew to bend over the arm, to put my forearms down on the cushion, to wait patiently for whatever was to come. I worried that once I started really crying, I wouldn't be able to stop. Remembering the caning at the beginning of the week, I murmured, "Please not too much. I can't today. I just can't."

"I don't believe that's your decision, young lady," you told me firmly. You patted my denim-clad bottom. Even Casual Friday hadn't made my day any easier. "I will determine what you can and can't take." Normally, this would make me tremble with a delicious but frightened anticipation. This time, it served to take any remaining strength from me. I collapsed more fully against the couch arm and the cushion beneath my arms, letting it rather than my legs hold my weight. The decision, and thus the control, was out of my hands. It was certain: you were going to spank me and I had no say in the matter.

"Ready?" You weren't so much asking as commanding. You didn't wait for an answer before you started spanking me in a steady, bouncing rhythm, back and forth from one cheek to the other. The smacks were hard but bearable. Enough to sting through jeans, not enough to bring forth the tears we both knew were coming.

The spanking was steady for a minute or two, maybe three; I lose my sense of time when it comes to these things. During that time I was trying to let my mind go blank, trying to release the day and its trials. I think you sensed that I was having trouble fully surrendering the issues that were on my mind. You stopped spanking and I heard the slight metallic clinking of a belt unbuckling, the whisp of sound that is leather pulled quickly through belt-loops.

I screamed at the first stroke, despite my pants still being up. It was hard, too hard, but it was the reaction you were going for. I jerked up and you pressed me back down into position. "There," you said. "Did anything like that happen at work today?" I shook my head no. "Then it couldn't have been so bad. What if you had to do this for a living?"

I couldn't help it; I grinned into the cushion. My hair was covering my face so you couldn't see me, but you knew. Of course you knew. You whipped me again with the belt, not so hard this time, just enough to smart and make me wiggle. Four more times, the leather landed right between bottom and thigh, each time in the same spot. I was no longer smiling and the first tears were forming, but I tried to hold myself together. I wasn't ready to break, not just yet.

"Imagine," you began, letting the belt fall in a slow but steady rhythm against the full of my backside, "having to do this all the time. Getting spanked, belted, caned, you name it, you'd have to take it. Is sitting at an office desk so bad? Eye strain, carpel tunnel, what are these things compared to a welted and bruised bottom day in and day out?" You paused to let me answer.

"Yes, that would be terrible, sir," I agreed. The belt came down hard.

"Do I sense sarcasm?" I shook my head again, lying. "Undo your jeans. Lower them to your knees. Keep your panties up."

I did as told, wondering why I had to keep my panties on. They were turquoise mesh with lace trim at the low-riding waist. Utterly useless in protecting oneself during a spanking situation. Jeans bunched at my knees, I waited for the next blow to come. When it didn't, I turned around, hands still on the couch but twisting my head and body to see why you hadn't continued. Your hand was covering your mouth and your cheeks were turning red. Your whole body was shaking. Were you...? Yes you were. You were laughing.

Now the tears were about to stream. Huge droplets pooled in the corners of my eyes. I started sniffling and I covered my top lip with my lower in a pathetic pout. "Why are you laughing at me?" I asked in my smallest voice.

"Oh baby," you said. You tugged at the fabric still covering my bottom. "No wonder you had a bad day. Your panties are on inside-out." You, my stern disciplinarian, dissolved into a fit of giggles. I reached back and felt what you'd been tugging on. It was the tag on the outside of my underpants.

My hair hid my face again as I began shaking uncontrollably. You lifted the curtain of hair, ready to comfort me, when you saw what we'd both been needing all along: my tears falling in streams over my cheeks and me laughing, laughing so hard that for a good minute I couldn't stop. You laughed along with me, and each time our eyes met the laughing began anew in full sobs at the absurdity of it all.

When we finally settled down, you wiped the tears from my eyes and So helped my jeans back up over a bottom that was, for all our laughter, bright pink and sore, and offered to drive to pick us up Chinese food.

It wasn't so bad a day after all.

Yesterday's panties, complete with tag out, slight tear, and just an eensy bit of bum cleavage.

Peek of the Week for April 22

(The image above was from a vintage amateur porn site called Dixie Cutie, which now seems to be especially nasty "spread me wide and put a camera in it" style porn. Ick.)

Abby's Watching: Sorry, everyone, there should be a fabulous link to a spanking video or the like here, but I'm watching the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs with Mr. W. This is taking up a good amount of time, and between work and hockey, I haven't had much time for blogging. Don't worry, though, I'm taking notes on all my ideas and hope to have a number of sexy posts for you soon.

Abby's Smarting From: A cold caning on Monday night. I wish I'd taken pictures! The welts were perfect. They're less apparent now, though still painful. I've been working in a busy office all week, and all I can hope is that my fidgeting in my seat in hopes of finding a less uncomfortable position went unnoticed. A few times, without thinking first, I collapsed into my chair and audibly said "Ouch." Oops.

Abby's Being Distracted By: The Calgary/Chicago game now in its 3rd period in the other room. We're tied. I must go! I do love the ice violence. Men with sticks. Mmmmm.

Wow, My Tush Looks Amazing

Advertisement for Muscle Milk, found in Self magazine.

Sometimes, you see an ad for something that is just good to be true. In this case, the part that was too good to be true was the packaging itself. As soon as I flipped to this ad in Self Magazine, I was already imagining having to run down to GNC just to purchase a bottle of chocolate milk that advertises the fabulousness of my own backside. "Look, everyone!" I could shout to the mall after making my purchase. "Doesn't my tush look AMAZING?!?!" I'd hold the bottle up as proof. At best, if any Portlanders I know from Fetlife or Twitter were at the mall at the time, they'd hear my cry and have a chance to say hello. At worst, I'd be asked to leave the mall, though hopefully it would be due to my yelling and not because a security guard disagreed with my proclamation.

Sadly, I checked the Muscle Milk website, and the actual words "Wow, my tush looks amazing" do not appear on the bottle itself. Well, that's a sale lost right there. I had envisioned Muscle Milk becoming the spanko's drink of choice, and it would be a way of identifying one another. Bottoms would carry the bottle and tops could approach them and say, "Why yes it does! But I could make it look a whole lot better." Super spanko code. But alas, it is not to be.

Now I'm wondering what other vanilla (or, as in this case, chocolate) products use slogans that could be appropriated by us fetish folk. Anything clever come to mind?

Third Time's the Charm?

I'm still committed to this "Peek of the Week" phrase, although it didn't last in its initial conception. I've been thinking about how to make use of it, and I began to think about how I really like those weekly roundups of what a person's been up to, whether it's Chross's Guide to the spankings he's found around the Internet or the non-fetish pop culture gems listed every Friday on the Pop Candy blog. This afternoon, I realized I could combine the two, which would allow me to provide a "peek" into what I've been thinking and doing, even when I don't have time to write a full essay or story about it all. So, despite the fact that it is already Thursday for half my readers, here is my attempt at Peek of the Week Version 3.0.

Abby is Reading: Casey Morgan's Blog
When Casey posted a link to a new blog post on Twitter yesterday, I figured I'd take a minute and read it since I hadn't had a chance to check out her blog yet and I'd been meaning to for weeks. It was midday, so I was at my desk at work, taking a quick brain break when I opened her page. Half an hour and a handful of Kleenex later, I was only able to pull myself away because the phone rang.

Casey's blog isn't just about spanking, though it's a core element, because it's a core element of Casey herself. She also writes about her identity, her dreams, and her experiences. What caused my eyes to tear was that she writes about all these things alongside her grief for her late husband, with whom she shared those experiences. I don't often think of what would become of my identity as Abby if Mr. W was no longer around. I don't know if I could still write here, in this part of my world. Casey not only writes in this world, she allows us into her life with a blend of honesty, humor, and insight, and I am grateful that she has become one of my friends.

Abby is Dreaming: A wooden fireplace mantel, with metal loops at each end, to which my wrists are tied with my body facing the unlit fireplace. This mantel is in a small cabin, Thoreau-style, in the middle of the woods. It seems I have trespassed. I am to be punished, but I have been unable to see the dweller of the cabin. Is it Mr. W? A burly woodsman? Thoreau himself, who will lecture me on measuring the water level of the pond (having been there many a time, it's really more of a small, beautiful lake) while he punishes me for treading on land he knows full well he does not, cannot, own? All I know is that every time I've let my mind wander this week, I find this mantel before my face, arms spread and bound, legs free but spread open, by commad. I stand on tiptoe. I wait

Abby is Craving: A new vibrator, as my favorite (this was the blue ridged one mentioned in the fantasy I wrote about in "When I Think About You I...") finally gave up after five happy years together. I'm still shopping for a new one, and trying to find something that I will love as much but that I can still afford. Why must pleasure be so pricey? Mr. W and I have enjoyed many a trip to antique stores all along the Pacific Coast, questing for items to be used against my backside. We've splurged a few times, but we've also made some fantastic finds without emptying our wallets. Antique stores are most definitely not an option when it comes to standard sex toys! Comically, I'm envisioning trying to use a hand-operated mechanical egg-beater, the kind with a crank you have to turn, to create vibration. On second thought, if I'm actually thinking of trying to get off with an egg-beater, maybe I need to just shell out the extra dollars and get something that will do the job. Clearly, this girl's in need.


And so ends the first edition of Peek of the Week V3.0. I'll have to try to include more links and tidbits next time, but I wanted to put this together while it was still Wednesday for me and thus technically still the "peak of the week." Fingers crossed that I can keep to a schedule in the future! Or perhaps Mr. W and I can create an agreement. If I fail to post a Peek of the Week, my next post will have to be a detailed description of how he punished me for procrastinating. Win, win!

(Um, yes. It's now Thursday for me as well. Better late than never?)

Return to Form and Function

Temporary souvenier handprint from the first strapping, mentioned below, with an antique barber strop on our honeymoon. In pain, I reached out and pressed my arm against our vehicle, as we were outside at night. We took a photo the next morning, when we realized I had left a handprint on the window. I remember us looking at it and Mr. W commenting, "It looks like someone was in distress."

Last night, whilst on my hands and knees and thinking we were about to do something quite different, I found myself receiving a short hand-spanking. It stung, but I became giddy and lightheaded; I'd been thinking of nothing but this for too many days. When it stopped as quickly as it started, I was disappointed, only to realize that Mr. W had paused in order to reach for the long, fur-lined toybox that had gone into hibernation for the first time this winter. The latch opened with a slow metallic pop, but we both knew the meaning behind the rasping snap: "At last, it's spring."

He began to rummage through the box, searching, I supposed, for the perfect implement, but after a few seconds I became curious and peered over the side of the box to watch him. I felt a bit like I was cheating, like it was supposed to be a surprise, but he let me watch, and gauged my reaction when he laid one of the more pliant straps alongside me. Our eyes met, and I cannot say what my gaze held for him. Did he see fear? Trepidation? Lust? I felt a confused mix of all three, remembering both the ecstasy of a long strapping session we'd shared a few years ago, as well as the biting sting of a newly purchased stiff antique barber strop, which he'd tested on me at night on a bluff by the Pacific Ocean, under a million stars with no other lights for miles. I wasn't sure that I was ready quite yet for a strapping, but there was only one way to find out. I braced myself and cried out when it struck me, but oh, was I in heaven.

I'm not sure how long the strapping lasted. A few strokes? A few minutes? I think it was just enough to remind me how much I'd missed it. I never once had that thought I used to have all the time, that question of "Why do I like this?" It was a playful spanking, not one meant for punishment or anyone's enjoyment but our own. Then just as I was falling into the rhythm of the strap, he switched implements and began spanking me with an ovular, flat leather equestrian slapper, one of our first toys, and one we bought within our first few days together in Oregon. I adore this item. When used with enough force, it produces a sensation that causes me to say "Ouch!" or "Ow ow ow!" but it never makes me scream. It's a warm-up toy, a play toy, and a welcome opening or intermission. In this case, it was the intermission between the strap and the tawse.

For the first, and probably last, time ever, I nearly said, "Yaaaay!" when the tawse came out of the box. I have been obsessing about the tawse for weeks and was so relieved to see it rather than the cane or something dastardly and wooden. That last video clip I posted is proof that I am not in love with the sensation of the tawse, and certainly not when it's used as discipline, but I am in love with the scent of it, the weight of it, the idea of it wrapping its fiery tongue across and around the inside of each cheek, making me squirm and cry out and struggle to escape its sting. The sentiment of celebration dissipated the moment he began to use it upon me, but rather than fighting it, I fell straight into the focused mindset of taking each stroke, letting the sting settle, then consciously moving back into position to receive the next one. I squealed and pulled away a bit, don't get me wrong - it was the tawse, after all, even if it wasn't being used as viciously as I've felt it in the past - but I had been craving this so much that I didn't want to miss the experience by fighting it as I normally might have done. Finally, kneeling on the bed, back arched and legs apart, bottom red and hair flying, I felt completely like myself.

I didn't cry until it was over. I hadn't realized I wasn't crying until the spanking had stopped, and then suddenly I was overcome with a rush of tears. They were exhausted but happy tears, not born of pain but of the elation that comes with survival. It wasn't the punishment that I'd survived, however, it was its absence. Now, spring had sprung in bright red and pink blooms across the pale winter expanse of my backside. In years to come, I will happily leave the chasing of eggs and rabbits to my youth and look forward to a new Easter tradition - the Happy Easter Tawsing.

Submission vs Obedience. Now featuring Bondage Puppies.

img (and bondage dogs for sale): www.honour.co.uk

When a pet-owner becomes exhausted by a rowdy canine, that dog might be sent to doggy day-care or obedience school, but even the kinkiest of us would probably take pause before sending a beloved pet to a school for submission. Submission School for Dogs sounds like a fetish-oriented pet care program, which may explain why I was unable to find a listing online for any canine training program with the word "submission" in its name. Apparently, even dog trainers know that submission is different from obedience. Why, then, is it so difficult to explain how one differs from the other? How do I know if I am submissive or just willing to follow commands?

I've been thinking about the disparity between these two concepts since MurasakiTeapot, kinky conversation starter and fellow fetishist in the Twitterverse, posed her Kink of the Day Question on Tuesday: "Submission vs. Obedience? Can you obey and not submit?"

I won't repost the whole thing here, but the course of the conversation can be followed on MurasakiTeapot's Twitter page if you go back far enough. I summed up my feelings with the theory, "Obedience is submission to a command. Submission is obedience to a person."

I'm going to approach my feelings on this from the perspective of sex and punishment, but not life and lifestyle. I know for certain that if I could never be the "s" in a D/s relationship, and I'm therefore not well-versed enough to consider that aspect of this subject. What I do know is that I've always considered myself to be sexually submissive, in the sense that I want to give up control. I want to be told what to do and how to do it, to be physically manipulated into the right position. My attitude takes on a "Do with me what you will" quality that can at times be crippling because it means I don't take initiative. I wait, because I fear I will do something dissatisfactory. In this sense, my submission greatly varies from obedience in that I have put my whole self and the entire scenario into my lover's hands. In waiting to take action because I am waiting to be told, I'm not actually obeying anything. I may, at times, even be preventing anything from happening at all. I haven't been told to wait. I haven't been told to fear. Those traits are intrinsic. Therefore, it seems I have answered the opposite of the original question. It is possible to be submissive without simultaneously being obedient.

Now consider a scene in which I am going to receive a spanking. Before the spanking itself, possibly for hours or days on end, I may have been literally begging for it. I most likely will have been pointing out, at times to an obsessive and irritating degree, exactly what I want and how I want it. No submission there. I do try to top from the bottom, I'm aware of it, and I know it's perceived as a big no-no, but I am nothing if not a series of diametrically opposed characteristiccs, and this just happens to be one of them. I've been told not to, and still I try to, pun intended, force my husband's hand. So no obedience in the spanking prequel. Apparently, I am just a very, very bad girl before my punishment.

When I want to be spanked, what happens to the sub from the bedroom? Why am I not that girl when it comes to discipline? Why do I suddenly want to take control and command my own spanking? My fear of behaving dissatisfactorily flies out the window. I have actually become aggravated with myself at times for wanting a spanking so badly that I am perfectly willing to ruin an otherwise peaceful but spank-free day by whining and pleading and then getting mad when I don't get my way. Mr. W is forced to prove his dominance by denying me the very thing I want. I realize this, and still I behave this way. So does that mean I really want the spanking, or I don't?

Fast-forward to the punishment. I bend where I'm supposed to, I take the strokes I'm meant to take, but I don't enjoy it. It hurts. I obey, but once it really starts to sting, I fight it, I wiggle away, I moan "please no more" into a pillow, I stamp my feet or kick or otherwise make a fuss. Inside my head, I'm wondering why I wanted this, why I'll be happy afterwards that it happened. In the moment I hate it, and I want it to stop, but when a new command is given, such as to reposition or to count the strokes, I obey. I'm mad about it, I don't want to do it, but I obey. Original question answered: Yes, it is possible to obey but not submit.

So where does this leave me? Do I need to learn to be both more dominant and more submissive? I think, in my case, the debate between obedience and submission is less relevant then the debate between my confidence as a spankophile and the tentativeness with which I approach other aspects of my life. As a spankophile, I know what I want, and won't rest until I get it. Is it really so easy as that? If I just knew what I wanted, and said what I wanted, would I get what I want as well? I don't think Mr. W even knows about the part of me that wants to fully submit, at least sometimes. He's so often exposed to Miss I Want My Way that he may not realize that Miss I Want Your Way to Be to Have Your Way With Me even exists.

I guess it comes down to three things. The first is that who I am sexually and who I am in terms of my spanking fetish really are two different entities. That is good to know, and something I had never considered separating until now. The second is that the theme song Mr. W picked for me when we first met still applies today, and I still laugh every time I hear Cheap Trick singing, "I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I'd love you to love me. I'm begging you to beg me." If nothing else, it seems he knew what he was getting into.

The third is that maybe I'm more submissive than I realized in the grand scheme, because what it all really comes down to is me saying not only "Dominate me" but also "I want so much to do what pleases you that I want to please you all the time, even when it might just be time to relax."

Next lesson: learning that submitting isn't really about what I want. And we're back to me considering D/s and realizing if I'm the "s" it's going to have to be a capital letter.

What Tears Were Made For

12 Strokes of the Tawse from Please Not My Hands

My dryer broke today. I spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong with it, because I rent my house and do not want to have to call my landlady. That would require cleaning the house first, and I'd rather just replace the belt or motor in the dryer if possible. First I cleaned behind the dryer, removing dust bunnies so large I could have named them. Then I spent forever trying to open the top to check the belt. The belt was fine. (Can I just say how sad it makes me that I am writing about my dryer belt and not my husband's belt across my bottom? This is very sad news.) The only thing left to check is the motor, which most likely needs to be replaced. Problem being: I need to get into the back of the dryer to check the motor.

The washer and dryer are wedged into a tight space between two walls. I realized today that the reason the washer, which is newer than the dryer, is dented in the middle is because it was forced into place. That means that the dryer is not coming out. No way, no how. Nor is the washer. They are going to be set between those two walls until the end of time.

Some of you would have very much enjoyed the positions I got into to attempt to move these large appliances. I had just exercised, after which I realized the dryer had broken, as I was trying to multi-task. So I was still in workout gear - snug-fitting running pants and black tank, hair in a pony-tail and cheeks flush with oxygen - when I got down on the floor, braced myself in any number of ways, and attempted to pull the dryer even inches farther than the wall. I'm not beneath hopping behind it to find a fix. I may not be the most physically fit girl in the world, but when I'm determined, I'll do what it takes to get the thing done.

Nothing worked. That thing is so wedged in there that I exhausted every muscle in my body to no avail. Sitting on the floor, right foot braced on one wall, left foot braced on the other, I just began to cry. I've had a ridiculous week in terms of my day job, and all I wanted to do today was work on my new story, work on moving my blog, and work on visiting my friends' blogs. Trying to fix a dryer, or cleaning my entire house so the landlady can get the dryer fixed, was not on the menu. So I wept full sobs of angst. And then I realized that there were better things to cry for.

I came over to the computer and pulled up my old film, "Please Not My Hands." I've been fantasizing a lot about the tawse lately, and had already intended to write a post today entailing my most recent fantasy, which quite literally made me collapse into orgasm earlier, before the dryer debacle. I'd been on my knees at the edge of the bed, as I like to be, and I actually fell forward onto the mattress. Anyhow, the fantasy used then most definitely needs to be written about here, but for now, as it was easier to render a clip and write about appliances, here is a full dozen strokes of the tawse. In this part, I am already openly crying because I've received the tawse on my hands as well as 24 strokes across my bottom. Just when I think it's over, Mr. W decides I need 12 more, and wants to make me count them. There is much sobbing, many exclamations of "ow," and yes, my softly pliant (i.e. a bit fleshy, but do we really care? no, no we don't) backside whipped quite well.

I'm posting this as much to remind myself that there are good things to cry about and stupid things to cry about as I am posting it for your viewing pleasure. There is much weeping. But you've probably already watched it and didn't bother with my diatribe about my dryer. If you did, thanks for listening! I'm still panicking, but I do always feel better about the world when I share my naked bum with it.

Origin of a Sexy Species

I have XM radio in my office, but it only gets three music channels - Top 40, hip-hop, and a mix station. The mix station, called Pink Channel Radio, is bearable in regards to music, but every now and again it offers up "life tips for women" from pop doctors and psychologists. They tend to be cringe-worthy on a good day, but today's tip especially irked me.

The subject was feeling sexy. "Show me a woman who feels sexy 24/7, and I'll show you a liar," intoned the condescendingly friendly voice. She went on to explain that feeling sexy is all about self-confidence, and if one is self-confident, then one will naturally feel sexy, look sexy, and be perceived as sexy by others. This isn't bad advice, in general. Self-confidence is fantastic. Feeling sexy is fantastic. Aside, however, from the obvious offense of implying that all women share a desperate need to look, feel, and be perceived as sexy by everyone at all times, this radio blurb assaulted the millions of women - and men - who struggle with their own self-confidence, among other more serious life issues, because of how they are perceived in regards to sex and "sexiness."

So let me get this right, Radio For Women. I need to improve my self-confidence so that I can be sexy, and then once I am sexy, the world can objectify me, ostracize me, or embarass me, because a sexual woman, and in addition a sexual woman involved in kink, is not the most openly embraced woman in the world. Then, objectified, outcast, and ashamed, I can search deep down for that self-confidence, bring it back to the surface, take pride in who I am and - because, by your own rule, Radio For Women, as a woman I need to be perceived as sexy - fall into the same painful cycle again.

Maybe I'm just a little sensitive right now after reading an insightful blog post from the brilliant and beautiful Miss Tori (and I'm not just saying that because she's a disciplinarian). On her (now defunct) blog La Dolce Tori, she recently wrote about the possibility that the influx of women into the adult industry during the recession could raise acceptance and remove the stigma of being a sex worker. She cited an article from the SF Gate, which stated "In this economy, 'desperate measures are becoming far more acceptable,' said Jonathan Alpert, a New York City-based psychotherapist who's had clients who worked in adult entertainment." Acceptance due to necessity had not occurred to me, and I have found myself hopeful since reading Miss Tori's post. If acceptance of traditional sex work (i.e. "vanilla") becomes commonplace, can the acceptance of fetish work and lifestyle and its practitioners be far behind?

I can admit that I have not experienced hardship because I like to be spanked. However, friends, strangers, and those I admire in the spanking world have experienced far more than hardship, often publically, always unnecessarily. Sex workers of the world, be they providers, pornographers, models or mistresses, have the right to their careers perhaps moreso than anyone else in the world.

Sex work isn't known as the oldest of professions because it was the career nobody wanted or the service nobody sought. I've been reading a vastly entertaining collection of sex trivia called Sexy Origins and Intimate Things by Charles Panati. It light-heartedly traces early prostitution from hunter-gatherer society onward. One theory as to why we, as humans, are essentially constantly "in heat" is because women bartered sex for food and protection for themselves and their children. The men fed and protected the women who remained sexually receptive for the longest periods, thereby essentially creating a race that was ingrained to want sex all the time. The need for sexual satisfaction is literally in our blood.

Why, then, are we outcast when we want to provide sexual satisfaction to others and obtain it for ourselves? Cultures and mores aside, why would we as a society subscribe to the denigration of the men and women who, quite literally, uphold our origin of species? Whether the work is for pay or for pleasure, we are doing what our genes, not our radios, have instructed us to do: be sexy.

Being sexy, in this sense, is not comparable to that of the pop psych radio pop-up. We have long outgrown our need to propagate the species. The fact that we still crave to satiate our sexual needs indicates that somewhere along the way, sex ceased to be about procreation. I think, as you read my blog, we are all in agreement here. The fact that the need for sex did not dissipate, and instead actually took on new forms (balloon fetish, anyone?) indicates that we now require our sexual needs to be met for our own innate human requirements. No assembly necessary, we came as we are and we now want to cum as we are as well.

The key is the fact that those needs are innate. I was born to become a woman who wants alot of sex and to be spanked to varying degrees quite frequently. I was born to want that mostly from a man, but now and again I have sought a woman in his place. I was born to prefer leather and the cane over hard flat wood. I was born to want to be erotically commanded, reprimanded, commandeered. When I am confident about who I am and how I was born, I am also someone who cannot express this "sexiness" to my family or co-workers or most of my friends. Let me tell you, Radio For Women, when I am feeling sexy, looking sexy, and being perceived by others as sexy, I'm also bent over a solid object and having my ass beaten with any number of implements.

So thank you, Radio For Women, but until this world has changed, I am afraid your advice does not adhere to me, or to any woman, or to anyone. We don't need to be sexy 24/7. We need to be accepted and allowed to live our lives. Offer a tip on that, and maybe I will be more willing to listen to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" three times in one day. Until then, Top 40 it is for me.

(The Pink Channel does provide a valued and charitable service to breast cancer research and treatment, which is why I am not going to actually send this diatribe to them. Still, I'm fairly sure that when they state that breast cancer affects one in three women, they didn't just mean the vanilla ones or the ones who could grace the pages of Maxim. And no one should be expected to "feel sexy 24/7." Don't give us tips on how to do so, give us tips on how to tell those who expect us to do so to piss off.)