Chronicles of Vox: Mistress Xia's Blog

Giant Goodbye

2010-11-06T13:09:00.000-07:00

It's dragged out longer than I wanted. It was harder than I thought to get out. You keep getting pulled back, even when everything that drew you to it in the first place is like a faded memory. Even when exciting new developments are waiting in the wings for your full attention. Old habits die hard and nostalgia has its pull. But I finally closed the door for good when I said to myself: it doesn't matter who they are, even the dearest ones, it's time to set up a permanent auto-reply and announce my retirement. They can take care of themselves. It's time to shut that door for good.

Boundaries have always been my weakness, and so with this leaving it was messy and upsetting. Maybe it couldn't have been any other way. In this arena, I was able to turn that weakness into a strength, gaining momentum from those slippery boundaries, sliding in and out of them with bravado.

In the beginning, I had something to prove. At the time, it seemed such a brave and daring thing. To show who's wearing the pants around here. To serve up a slice of pain of violation, subjugation, and objectification. Straight from the heart, aimed like an arrow into yours. Revenge and glory all wrapped up into one neat package: Mistress Xia.

It's almost funny how we all keep reenacting our hurt, as if we can somehow make it better, get it right if we just keep at it. But you cannot exorcise demons through repeated exposure, not unless you are truly safe. And being emotionally safe in a professional environment revolving around sexuality takes a monumental effort; perhaps a thicker skin than I can muster.  In the end, I think the parameters are off.

Yes, I traded places with the perpetrator, but it was same dance. A simplistic, binary dance which failed to embrace the shades of gray, the ultimate paradox of life. An illusory act, complicit in its thrust of inauthenticity - the idea that intimacy of any kind can be up for sale, that people do not really have to see one another, but can simply order up what they've imagined in the isolation of their own heads.  It always seemed like cheating, that you could get to someone you normally wouldn't have a chance with because money exchanged hands. It's not earned that way, and it's hard to respect because of it. I do not want to be a part of the lies anymore, nor the misunderstanding and ego-tripping these lies perpetuate. No more running into pain to run away.

---

My City was on fire this past week, giddy with celebration over our first World Series win. It was no coincidence that during this playoff run, I set myself free. I was loving every minute following these guys who played with such pure hearts and clear minds, without the egotistical fronting. Weird, wild, fun-loving, hard-working, creative, and humble - this underdog team of 2010 was a beautiful reflection of the spirit of San Francisco.

It was great to watch these Giants not succumb to the small-minded questioning of the sports press, who cajoled in an attempt to inflate their egos by asking them to choose who among them was the best, tempting the players to alienate themselves from a common effort. In that last game, the other team's pitcher lost because he wouldn't back down, he said that wasn't his way. But we could all feel the danger immediately preceding that moment, and knew backing down would have been the wise and prudent thing to do - if not for him, then for his team.  Our scrappy team would not make the same mistake. And our own unassuming yet phenomenal pitcher, a hero among heroes, without a doubt had much to do with our success.

I could not help but see some analogies within this arena and the one I just left. Burning bright and hard with youth, the talented rise to the top. And though we earn vital wisdom with age, our bodies will inevitably give way. The seduction of the ego is ever present, and there are many devils in disguise. There is the pure joy of the game, and the dark side of exploitation and objectification. It is easy to forget about the fun and get jaded. But if you protect yourself and learn to tune out the bullshit, you can keep that magic... at least for a little while.

So this past week, amidst the throng of fans who lined the streets of San Francisco, I fell in love with my adopted city all over again.  It's been fifteen years since I moved up here from that hellacious town down south. The City is my refuge from all that I despised down there: the superficial cool, the forced cynicism, the hierarchy and sexism, the meanness, ignorance, and arrogance - all that powering the machine of Hollywood fast food celebrity culture. Growing up there, it was almost as if that town goes out of its way to spit on you. Up here we revel in the goofy, we smile and mostly mean it, we know how to be real and how to love. We are a wellspring of post/modern culture: from beatniks to hippies to Burning Man and the techno-evolution. We are unselfconscious, not afraid to show that we speak from the heart and that we believe. That's what makes San Francisco such a great city, a city where each of us matters, and which inspires us do the "impossible" while others are still saying no.

Tourists of Fun

2010-09-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

A longtime denizen of nightlife, I have noticed a new breed as of late. Camera ready in hand, they take pictures at every opportunity, documenting "how much fun" they are having to show all the world on Facebook. I was at some event recently where I was introduced to a few of this species. I can recall no discernible personality, though they were pleasant enough. What I remember most is their constant picture-taking. To me, there seemed no way for them to actually get into the flow of what has happening all around them. They were oblivious - their awkward machinations, almost robotic in their actions, as if playing off a script. There was no real engagement with their surroundings. The irony of having true fun and connection impeded by the awkward and endless recording of one's life seemed to be lost on them.

Don't get me wrong. My friend runs a nightlife website and I am used to posing for the obligatory photos. I've been told that I have had more photos of me posted over the years than anyone else, a tribute to my ongoing involvement in local dance music culture. It's one thing to interrupt your socializing, dancing, and carousing to strike an occasional pose. It's another to actually not be interrupting anything, but simply to pose as if you are having the time of your life.

It reminds me of a particular way of travelling which I had the misfortunate of experiencing once during a trip to Paris with some other American girls. Our brief stay was a race from landmark to landmark. There was no depth to our excursion. No steeping in Parisian culture. Rather, it was a series of stereotypical photo opportunities. I could have stayed home and seen the same in any standard travel documentary.

So now with Facebook, we have the social movers and shakers who are all show. It's like my lament that LA nightlife looks better on film than in person. In all the years I used to rave and club down there, I saw little real community, at least amongst the non-celebrities. It's a two-dimensional set rather than an immersive scene, and you are an extra. It is all for the eye, to be seen but not felt.

Do these FB clubbers convince themselves that they are having fun? Is it the same as the scientific research which suggests that smiling can induce happiness? It seems so empty and contrived, as I pose for their pictures, colluding in their illusion. I smile and tilt my head, an aesthetically pleasing and fashionable paper doll, there to confirm their status as what? Jet-setting bohemians? Sophisticated party animals? Social butterflies? Yeah right.

Blogging

2010-09-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hello to all who enjoy reading my blog~

One of the great liberating aspects of writing this blog has been my ability to unabashedly share my thoughts. This has been contingent upon a certain degree of anonymity and the freedom to write without too much thought about the repercussions of what I say. Yet the longer I have posted to my Chronicles, the harder it has become - in the sense that I am no longer really anonymous, my identity as Mistress Xia pretty firmly established within certain communities. And I can no longer deny that I have held back posts on numerous occasions for fear of offending people I care about, or providing too much information to potential supplicants. Laying my soul bare to strangers is one thing, but doing so and then creating the opportunity to meet with me in an intimate situation is perhaps too much for me these days.

With these considerations in mind, I have started to post on a new blog which is not restricted to my life as a dominatrix. I will not be publicizing this blog because that would defeat its purpose. I will still try to post here occasionally. Though I regret that I will not be sharing as much in this space, I hope it reassures some of my followers to know that I am still writing, somewhere out there. . .

M. Xia

UndercoverDominatrix.com temporarily down

2010-09-08T21:33:00.001-07:00

Oops I forgot to renew my main website! Have no fear, it should be back up in the next day or so ;)

2010-08-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Maggie Q

Le Femme Nikita

Dreamers and Schemers

2010-08-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

I attended a conference last weekend and got so stoked on all the intellectual stimulation. I need this, above and beyond emotional sustenance - I need that engagement in higher levels of critical thinking. It was great to have such a meeting of the minds.

I met someone at this event who had also attended the MAPS conference over the summer. He and I both agreed that this organization is a strange mix of dreamers and schemers. The dreamers are the big thinkers whose ideas and experiments inspire and drive the direction of the movement. Yet the everyday running of things seems to be controlled by the schemers, who have nothing original to offer, but seeing this pot of gold in front of them, they want to control it and bask in the glow of those with true power.

The schemers were ego tripping, politicking, power grabbing. The dreamers seemed to float above it, letting the schemers carry them through their execution of the mundane tasks required. Meanwhile, the schemers fought amongst themselves, vying for the opportunity to be the best handler, as if they could somehow own the dreamers. It was strange to observe these two parallel worlds functioning together. I am sure this sort of structure is quite common in ventures where there are powerful idea-makers and a wealth of creativity that needs to be managed.

A Focus on Enhancement & Optimization

2010-08-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

In the trenches now for the first time as a beginning counselor, I am finding it gratifying and incredibly intense. This new challenge may be less glamorous than D/s sessions, yet in many ways it is a fitting extension of the interpersonal growth work which began for me in the dungeon.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it has been books of my own choosing, not those assigned in my classes, which have really furthered my understanding of human nature. The topics of these books, such as lucid dreaming, neuro linguistic programming (NLP), enneagram personality system, and non-violent communication (NVC) are considered too left field, too new or too "pop psychology" to be included in the required coursework. It makes sense then that this would be where the real learning takes place, and that it would require self-motivation, initiative and creative research to find. The good stuff rarely ever just falls into your lap!

As I have continued on in my studies and practice, I am becoming more certain that my path will lead me towards a focus on life enhancement and optimal actualization, rather than pathology. While I feel privileged to be in the midst of such a role at the moment, my life has been so much about pursuing excellence and going beyond the baseline of success to an even higher level of fulfillment. I am looking forward to integrating the knowledge I have gleened from my eclectic explorations into a coaching and training role.

Better than Reality?

2010-07-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

In the past, my mother has told me that I have a way of writing that makes things sound better than they actually are. I laugh and wonder to myself if this is because I was a voracious reader of cereal boxes and other everyday snippets of marketing. It is true that what I create with words at once attempts to embody but also transcend that to which I refer.

With this in mind, I sadly must state my disappointment with the movie Salt. As much as I love Angelina Jolie, and as happy as I am about her breaking through the action movie gender barrier, I wish Hollywood could come up with a better quality script than that. We have come to the point where we are merely telegraphing ideas and going through the motions. Mainstream movies are getting longer, but not deeper! Well, there's still Inception. I'm excited to see if the film has any effect on my lucid dreaming explorations.

Speaking of better than reality, I was mildly shocked to see recent pictures of Megan Fox looking a little too plastic at a movie premiere. My first thought was she has succumbed to the pressures of Hollywood and dipped into Botox and other procedures. A quick google search revealed the truth: that the woman we know as Megan Fox is an almost completely artificial, surgically-induced creation. Not happy with her girl-next-door good looks, she has repeatedly gone under the knife to give her the vampish, high glamour appearance of an Angelina Jolie lookalike. I'm not one to censure such actions, as obviously her plastic pursuits got her this far. Yet it seems like she does not know when to stop, and as such has pulled the curtains away from the illusion. The next self-created star will hopefully also be able to act.

To make matters worse, I left my phone in the movie theater! Some part of me is even relieved. These smart phones begin to eat away at our existence, separating us from the immediacy of the physical world. It reminds me of the 1991 Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World, in which people become addicted to hand-held devices which capture their dreams. Eventually, the addicts do not want to do anything else but stare at their dreams, growing lethargic, neglecting to eat or sleep as their red-rimmed eyes stay glued to the tiny screens. In many ways, a prescient movie.

The disembodied effect of new media fascinates me. How awareness of time itself can disappear as we merge with the endless stream of data coming our way. In this era, I feel that it is even more vital to stay connected with the physical plane.

Recently, I had one of those intangible and highly internalized revelations which are hard to describe or fully make sense of with words. It was during some treasured alone time, when the exterior trappings of our self concept are allowed to fall away and we can attune ourselves with a greater consciousness. I sang from my soul and allowed my spirit to dance, loving and rediscovering myself. It was then, as I faced the mirror, that I began to sense my body in a different way. Not simply as a vehicle to be used by my thinking self, but a full-fledged complimentary intelligence residing within me. A body-centered intelligence which we all too often neglect and suppress, if not completely ignore. The duality of our existence is nested within us all.

Salt - Changes in Hollywood

2010-07-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've watched the publicity surrounding Angelina Jolie's new action movie Salt with a great deal of excitement. Finally, a badass action hero who happens to be a woman! They are saying she is the first action star to transcend gender. I also was happy to hear that fellow hapa (he is half Samoan) Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is going to be taking over a Clive Owen role that is in production. It is great to see a woman and a multiracial actor stepping into lead roles that had formerly been reserved for caucasian men.

I grew up pissed off at the sexism of the movie industry; my critical lens nourished by the cutting insight of a feminist mother. There have been some changes since then - more women in active roles, not just screaming victims breaking their stilettos at inopportune moments. But of course, there is still a lot of BS in the biz. In her memoir Suck It, Wonder Woman! The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek, Olivia Munn mentions a sleazy blockbuster movie director who whips it out and masturbates in front of women in their trailers, another filmmaker whose nickname for his girlfriend is "whore", a studio honcho who shows off his sex toy to strangers, and an actor whose improvised dialogue detailed his desire to take a shower with Munn's character. Munn, who is yet another hapa, states that these men are pathetic for needing to debase their power like that. I hope her outing of them helps throw some sunlight on their dirty practices.

I know for myself, working on a studio lot just out of undergrad, I was amazed at how scantily-clad all the women were - not just clerical/gophers, but producers and the like. It hammered home for me that, in Hollywood, all women are expected to objectify themselves. I think that's why I've found only limited success in my dealings with SoCal Mistress seekers. In that environment, it is hard to have one's femme power taken seriously.

A few years ago I went up to the Bunny Ranch to hang out with a friend who was doing marketing for Dennis Hof. I got to watch them film the Cathouse reality show, and be an extra in the background while I privately studied the dynamics of a bordello. During that trip, I met a very attractive woman who had just flown in from LA. She was an aspiring actress, and was happy to be making some money on the side. In all too many ways, the two jobs are quite similar - indeed, for those without the benefit of nepotism, the casting couch is alive and well.

Changes are occurring, yet not as fast as they could be. Studies still show that the more TV a person watches, the more sexist, racist, and fearful of crime they are. The media skews heavy watchers' views of the world, regularly objectifying women, demonizing minorities, and scaring the hell out of everyone.

Back to Angelina, I read one male reviewer of Salt state something like the following: "Listen up kids. The physics is all wrong. Girlfriend has no throw weight." So let's just forget for a moment that movies are supposed to involve a suspension of disbelief. Does this reviewer really think that 5'7" Tom Cruise, who Jolie replaced in the role, would make a more believable secret agent? Homeboy don't have much throw weight himself. I remember reading a review of one of Jolie's Tomb Raider movies in which the male reviewer whined something to the effect of "Who does she think she is? Strutting around as if she were hot stuff." Such juvenile reactions. Ms. Jolie has stated that she never wanted to be a Bond girl, she wanted to be Bond. And not just for her, but for her daughters.

Yet the pushback does not always have to come from men. Olivia Munn has been severely criticized by several female bloggers who claim that the success she has achieved in Hollywood is due to her looks (she co-hosts Attack of the Show, did a gig with the Daily Show, and is starring in a new network sitcom). She counters that a woman can be both smart and sexy - interviewing politicians on the Daily Show and appearing on the covers of Maxim and Playboy. Why do they need to be mutually exclusive? Wouldn't it be reverse discrimination to disqualify her just because she is attractive? There seems no way to please the peanut gallery! Studies on the relationship between self-esteem and put-downs has confirmed my worst suspicions - that people actually can elevate their self-esteem by denigrating others. This goes a long way to explaining all the vicious, misogynist flames you can find in the comments section of articles about Jolie. The threatened reaction of the masses tells a lot about where the real changes are taking place. Keep fighting the good fight my Hollywood heroes - we are getting there!

The "articulate porn star"

2010-07-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

I found the following link to a Salon.com interview of adult video performer Lorelei on Max Fisch under the heading "Interview with an articulate porn star." I was struck by the title of the thread, which implies a common bias that a woman who engages in work of a sexual nature must be an air-headed bimbo.

Here is another link on the San Francisco Chronicle's website which features an award-winning seven-minute documentary on Lorelei.

Lorelei met a friend of mine, who is also a local pro domme, during a sex workers art show tour. She ended up taking sessions out of my alma mater, The Gates, when she lived in the Bay Area. You can actually catch a glimpse of the inside of the new house in the video.

In one scene in the documentary, Lorelei speaks of her disappointment in one of her professors. After having told him of her work in the adult industry, he told her that he would prefer that she not reveal this to her fellow students, so that she "could stay the smart girl who sits in the front of the class." Once again, that sexy girl=dumb girl bias. As if the two things - being smart and being a sex worker - are mutually exclusive. What follows naturally from this argument is that such work is inherently harmful to women and therefore only stupid ones would engage in it.

Certainly, there are a fair share of individuals within the porn who substitute sex for thinking. Yet in my experience, there are also quite a few players who are highly articulate and critical thinkers. Now in graduate school in New York, Lorelei's Salon.com interview illustrates cogent arguments from a courageous and insightful mind. My favorite quotes from the interview follow:

The prevailing message women receive is that sexual aggression is unfeminine, that a woman's primary sexual role is as regulator of male desire — to say yes or no, but not to pursue desires of our own. Women are still often taught that sexy is the same as "pretty," that it means dressing a certain way and then waiting to be approached...

If we lived in a society in which women's sexuality was celebrated, and was seen as usually proactive rather than usually passive, I don't think people would jump so quickly to the concepts of exploitation and dehumanization when they thought of female performers.

Hierarchy & Leadershp

2010-07-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

I have been blessed with a certain degree of personal power, the effects of which I have often noticed in various situations involving group dynamics. I used to fret over the self-consciousness and existential angst that this would inevitably bring up for me. To feel watched and then imitated, a process which usually struck me as more unconscious than not, as if all the players involved were simply acting out a primeval, collective dance.

Hierarchy comes naturally to most primates, and on this instinctive level, we are no different. Yet I am not a believer in biology as destiny. Far from it. In this day and age, it may seem that the extra brains of our species have only burdened us with the folly of intelligence-driven destruction. Yet the one thing we may cherish as human beings is the ability to transcend the vestiges of our evolution and envision an as-yet-unrealized ideal.

As for the effects of everyday hierarchy, the reality is one of limited options and minimal personal control felt in the lower echelons of society. We are finding out that the stress of being on the bottom rung of the ladder is insidious, long-lasting, and highly impactful on factors such as life expectancy, overall health and well-being. Even just a small step up the ladder significantly decreases these negative effects.

This real-life exercising of heirarchy is toxic, not to mention boring and non-consensual. Though many people express resignation about this state of affairs, saying things like "It's always been this way and it always will be," I am not so pessimistic. Women's liberation and the civil rights movement has demonstrated how deeply engrained social structures can be transformed. Technology is also on our side, with scientists working to create a "vaccine" to combat the ravages of low status stress (though of course, a medical intervention of this kind would open up a whole other can of worms. Would the vaccine be used to substitute for more equal access to resources? But actually, this status stress has been measured in developed cultures where even the lowest rung has a fairly high standard of living. So it appears that the lack of heirarchical power, more than inadequate basic needs, may be driving these negative effects).

In the big picture, I wish for hierarchy to remain where it belongs; as a titillating game which gouds us into action, provoking innovation and the inspiration of passion. I would not support attempts to obliterate that which is in our nature. I simply believe in manipulating the variables, re-directing energies into more useful, playful, creative and positive avenues.

As for myself, I have spent quite a bit of time shying away from the leadership roles which have come my way. In some ways, I took humility too far. Now, I understand that to lead can be the fulfillment of duty and responsibility, not just a narcissistic crown on one's head. Particularly for my circle of supplicants, some of whom did not serve anyone else during my leave, I feel a desire to connect, fulfill, and transcend. I see my singular vision of what it means to be a domina as both an artistic impulse and a spiritual obligation.

And while, in the past, the gifts I have been blessed with may have seemed like a burden, my experiences during my break taught me plenty, including just how great I have it. Those down-time explorations which were marked by barrenness, banality, and the taking on of shame. Yes, there was dabbling in vanilla and femme sub to boot. No, it didn't work for me, but I suppose I had to see for myself once and for all. And now I am that much stronger and wiser for having gone down those paths, so that I could really know in my heart that this is where I belong. Amen.

Rockin' to the Beat of Your Own Drummer

2010-07-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

I rocked a catwoman outfit for a villains & heroes-themed gathering. I don't think I've ever worn such a transformative costume. Even friends did not recognize me. It was like I was another person, people reacted to me so differently. Children stared and grown-ups strolled up with smiles, saying "Hey Catwoman..." I was amazed how approachable one becomes when taking on such an icon. I felt very much the supervillain. Yet instead of super powers, these costumes actually seem to decrease one's senses. I could barely hear with my ears covered by a rubber mask, and others complained that their masks blocked their peripheral vision. We laughed at this irony. Isn't it funny how life is like that - a topsy turvy world where things are not always as they seem.

I recently had a chance to study the issue of conformity and as such have been contemplating the full extent of its force upon all of us, most especially at unconscious levels. We conform because it makes us uncomfortable not to, we feel it in our guts when things stray too far outside the norm. In kink, we play with this feeling, as with so many other conflicted dynamics.

One aspect of conformity in the vanilla world I always am disappointed to see is when a beautiful woman wearing a killer, original outfit gets the jitters and midway through the party changes into something more conventional or otherwise tones it down. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen on numerous occasions. I jokingly remember these long lost outfits as "the ones that got away."

Admittedly, it can be a bit trying to don an edgy outfit. But if it's sexy and works, then I think a woman has to learn to suck it up and go with it. We all benefit when we are blessed with a vision of beauty and creativity. Sure, you may be getting more looks than you're used to, but that's because you are rocking it. There's that intangible pull to want to shimmy back to the median, but you have to have the balls to resist and step up. Yes, that's right, women have to have balls too!

All right, well you've caught Mistress in a more playful mood today ;) I'll sign off for now. . .

Domination: Better as a Game in a Dungeon

2010-07-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Living in San Francisco in my carefully crafted unconventional life, I forget sometimes what it must be like for many of the seekers out there. We may play at games of subjugation and humiliation, but Mistress does not really want to cut off your balls. It's unfortunate that I have to state this, yet when I get glimpses into the vanilla dating world through stories that my guy friends tell me, it occurs to me how brainwashed most women out there are. They make all sorts of silly and draining demands on men because they've been programmed to think these are necessary to demonstrate that they are respected and loved. Once again, it's the replacement of true understanding between essentially equal beings with arbitrary signposts of the so-called "right" way to do things.

All of this is much healthier if constrained to the dungeon. We all play power games, but most do it subversively if not unconsciously. Better to name it and turn it into a game than let it secretly rule you, and be frustrated in one's attempts to escape this intangible web.

In coming back into the professional arena, I wanted to stay true to my vision of femme domme. And I still believe in my way. For serving an authentically powerful and wise woman is not unlike going to church - one's spirit is elevated in worshipful ecstasy. Yet I know I must scare some men away with my uncompromising vision. For all they probably have known of female domination is the cold-hearted scheming of those who, in their ignorance and weakness, must make others feel bad so that they can feel good. And I'm just speaking of everyday women in this world, not dominatrices. That is very far from what I am all about.

Double Trouble, Planned Excitement, Battling Vanilla

2010-07-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

I had a lovely double session with Mistress Ai-Li. Actually, I think all three of us – submissive included – were amazed at how perfectly everything flowed . And to think, this was our first time running a scene together! I am definitely looking forward to more multi-Mistress sessions. Mistress Ai-Li and I have known each other socially for some time now, and it is gratifying to know that our affinity for one another carries over into our in-scene chemistry.

I was thinking about the idea of planned excitement. Some people’s idea of fun is chaos. They think adventure must be accompanied by pure spontaneity. That to plan things out is boring and somehow takes away from the thrill. I have been accused of just such a thing, and yet I’m afraid that my accusers could not possibly have as exciting a life as me. Waiting for the next fire to put out or some other unanticipated drama is not my idea of a good time. The whole idea of crafting a scene and organizing a session around it goes hand in hand with this idea of planned excitement. It is possible to have a highly pleasurable life that is also well coordinated. In fact, in the adept execution of our desires, we create a safe space to lose control.

I recently posted on Max Fisch in response to a thread which debated the question of whether or not a pro domme is a sex worker. This thread has mysteriously been removed, as I had meant to quote directly from my post. It was quite a long and involved thread, yet I believe that my late contribution to the discussion was the only one to explicitly state that I did in fact differentiate myself from other types of sex workers. It would seem that professional dominas have become so sensitive to the contingencies of political correctness that we no longer can simply state the obvious.

I believe that this distinction matters because without it, the essence of what makes dominatrices unique is lost. If we do not emphasize this delineation, we risk allowing the vanilla to seep in. Indeed, part of what goes on in the dungeon is a playful battle between femme domme and vanilla. Men seek out this alternative experience where traditional gender roles are reversed, yet deep down many unconsciously yearn to turn the tables, to be the one who is able to declaw the cat and transform her into a cuddly kitten.

To me, the oath of the Mistress involves commitment to her role as the anti-GFE, the woman who will not go with you down the well-tread paths of the everyday, but who instead insists upon the twist – and lives and breathes it with all her heart. Are we yet another pretty package to be bought, this time with a bit more naughty spice added to the mix? Of course, there will always be men and women involved in the game who see it that way. Yet that is the difference between play-acting at Dominance/submission and truly manifesting it.

It reminds me of that final scene in the second Batman film where Catwoman tells Batman that she would love to give up the fight and go away with him to live happily ever after in his castle. But in the end, she cannot. The destiny of the dominatrix is to stay on the shadowy path, liberated from convention, reveling in hot perversion… and whatever else her deviously creative mind can think of.

Breaking through the Surface

2010-06-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

Surface, surface, surface. It's amazing how one can just live on the surface of life, only caring about the window dressing. I have seen how it is to live like that, sucked in as we all get from time to time, the pull of the bad romance. The irony of the materially-enriched yet internally impoverished existence. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive in most cases. Yet we are forever hiding behind the shell of things. Some have ignored the depths for so long, they no longer recognize that anything is missing. They think the actions and the objects are the same thing as the feelings and the inner growth.

I once had a lover who would describe dreams and aspirations only in terms of how it would look, how we would be dressed and how we would act, as if we were playing parts in a movie. Creative visualization but without a soul, no ghost in the machine. All the pretty things and all the pretty people in the world cannot fill up that emptiness, my dear. In the end, there is no running away from the truth.

Even in the dungeon, some just go through the motions. Admittedly, here it is more complicated. For instance, my critique about the over-emphasis on objects and actions may fall on deaf ears to the fetishist. It is incredibly subtle, the distinction I am trying to make. In my mind, relationships are not really about actions and objects. Though I know many, if not most, see them this way - as if the relationship were a spreadsheet where the rituals of reciprocation and regard are tracked and scored. Yes, consideration matters, but not just the face of it, when it is done by route, and most especially not when there is an expectation that there will be winners and losers. How can we truly see one another when that's all there is?

For those of us who crave the real, the dungeon can be a place where we break through the surface. Through the tools of control and submission, we tease out the impermanent from the everlasting. But you have to be fully present to it. If I simply stay skating on the surface, musing to myself about what an amazing domme I am, how good I look, how desired I am or other self-indulgent tripe, will I notice when my submissive has had too much? If I am not right there with him, inside his head, I cannot possibly know where to to take us and how to get back. Not for anything other than a fill-in-the-blank experience. We both have to be willing, for that journey into truth. As in all worthy endeavors, it takes courage, strength, humility and honesty to know the way and keep on the path.

A Little Help From Our Friends

2010-06-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

We sit in the workshop classroom as the instructor, a Freudian analyst, tells us that the "hows" and "whys" of therapy are a mystery. That we don't really understand how it works when it does, or what went wrong when it doesn't. The young and eager attendees shift in uncomfortable silence. We want answers. We want certainty. Empirically-based evidence that we are heading in the right direction. We want the validity of science, not just the beauty of art. I think that is why so many in the new generation like the CBT model - no, not cock and ball torture! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is concrete and measurable. As such, it reassures us. Ambiguity, that sense of groundlessness - that can be so unnerving. We keep trying to stay in control. Again and again, it comes back to balance. Holding the reins lightly but not letting go. Neither one extreme or the other. Neither all-out anarchy nor dictatorship. It requires true mindfulness to stay in the middle.

Since I came back from a dive trip to the Asian Pacific, I have been delightfully deluged with the servitude of my dear submissives. I am blessed to know so many bright, positive, and genuinely nice people. With a little help from my submissive friends, I have eased my way back into the dungeon and stoked my passion for D/s play.

While I am still entertaining applications from those I do not know, I continue to refine my screening process to best meet my need for compatibility. I am a very sensitive person and there is a definite emotional investment in the process of seeing someone new in the dungeon. I cannot do this craft in any other way but to put my heart and soul into it. As such, when there are disappointments, they inevitably have an effect on me. I strive to protect myself from energy-draining experiences, yet it is quite natural that these will occasionally intrude upon my life. I take them as opportunities to learn, providing valuable feedback which allows me to hone both the messages I convey and the parameters of my assessment.

I was speaking with another domina about how, with the advent of the internet, the craft of professional domination has become more service provider-oriented. There is no doubt in my mind that I have benefited from the information age, with my fondness for visual technology and my ease with online communication. Yet this illustrates a newfound subtlety for me - namely, weeding out those who are ultimately looking for a service provider experience. Sometimes this distinction, intangible as it is, is not consciously known by the seeker. Sadly, it may be due to the fact that he has never encountered any other kind of experience. Whatever the case may be, I am happy to find my skills at discrimination to be progressing.

With our Mother Earth bleeding oil and disasters a regular news item these days, sometimes it feels so trifling to play the Mistress. Yet because of these outside stressors, the time we set aside to get away from it all can be vital. For me, it is not about forgetting reality, but about acknowledging it, grieving our losses, and celebrating the spirit which soothes and strengthens us all.

Choice

2010-06-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

Lessons often seem simple after the fact. But that is because we must live them to learn them. We cannot just be told and then somehow absorb that wisdom. That's why all the fortune cookie sayings in the world cannot change you. You must change yourself. Or be willing to surrender to it.

The realization that I have had of late concerns the exercising of choice. Many dominas claim to be selective. But how many actually are? I think the happy ones must be. Those foundation years at The Gates, I wanted so badly to believe that my craft was one and the same as my independent sisters. In doing so, I deluded myself on the one key difference: the freedom to truly choose who would serve me.

In retrospect, the thing that wore on me during my twilight days at the house was not being a Mistress in and of itself. On the contrary, each time I come back to it, it feels more right. It was the burden of accommodation. The sloppy compatability, the disregard for the importance of good fit.

Even when I left, burnt out from the poorly mannered and crude who could never fully appreciate all that I am, I still denied myself the power in my own hands. Entering independence that time, I was still in the mindset of a service provider. I thought I had to see everyone who wanted to see me, so long as they sought my listed activities and did not overtly offend with requests for sex or the like.

And yet, in my personal life I have long been very particular about the company I choose to keep. My social circles are peopled with sophisticated jet-setters, cultured aficionados of artful aesthetics, ambitious thinkers and fun-loving metaphysical explorers. So why the dissonance? I think this craft of session-based domination, with its necessity of a double life, led to a compartmentalization of all that I experienced therein.

So like many things, my search for bliss as a Mistress has been a progression towards integration - of "Xia" with the rest of my life. And this has involved, first and foremost, an application of the high standards which I expect of myself and others in my personal life to the dungeon. The valuing of health, prosperity, intelligence, humor, humility, creativity, intuition, positivity and overall balance. . . as well as giving myself permission to say no. These things have made my return all the sweeter.

Catching Up

2010-06-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

The outpouring of support has been tremendous. After cultivating many wonderful D/s relationships over the years, it would seem that catching up with those who have served me in the past is all I need for the moment. With my busy schedule, I only have time to session 2 to 3 times a week - and actually, that suits me just fine! A sprinkling of kink to spice up the vanilla in the rest of my week. And having already established trust and goodwill between us, there will be no end to the devious hijinks!

I will likely lock in a few of my favorite submissives, masochists, and strap-on sluts into a regular schedule, then fill in any extra time I may have on an as-needed basis with my out-of-towners. I find the vetting process for new applicants to be quite time-consuming, a bit stressful, and unfortunately often leading to disappointment. So for the time being, I will be focused on re-connecting with old friends and exploring new paths together.

I am playing exclusively out of the City and have 3 sumptuous playspaces at my disposal: an historic chamber in the inner Mission, an extremely well-equipped loft in SOMA, and a sleek North Beach dungeon.

All the best from Mistress Xia

Touched by the Support

2010-05-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have caught a few episodes here and there of the re-imagined TV series "V," about too-good-to-be-true aliens from another planet who proclaim they come in peace but are secretly intent on the destruction of humanity. I have a certain nostalgia for the original '80s series, having watched it as a young child. For me, nothing can match the original V's bright red uniforms, echo-laden voices, or Diana's shocking engulfment of a guinea pig, her jaw unhinging like a snake. The new conceptualization is more a play on the idea of "What if the good guys had to be the terrorists?" In any case, I watch it intermittently now mainly because I am drawn to Morena Baccarin, the actress who played the space travelling courtesan Inara Serra in Firefly and who is the supremely evil V leader Anna in this series. In the reconceptualization, she is more than a political leader of her people, she is an actual biological queen in a sense analogous to that of a queen bee. She rules her subjects mercilously, in part through her administration of "bliss," which is some sort of innate, hypnotic power she has over the others of her species.

Then there is her teenage daughter, Lisa, who is set by Anna with the seemingly trifling task of seducing a human boy. What was interesting in the season finale was watching Lisa transform from hapless daughter to a powerful woman in her own right. When confronted with the choice to betray her cold-blooded mother, she initially vacillates, but ultimately makes the right decision. It is in one these scenes that I resonated the most. Joshua, one of the leaders of the V underground resistance, has been found out and Lisa goes behind Anna's back to release him from captivity. Before they take leave of each other, Joshua surprises Lisa by bowing his head and quietly uttering, "My Queen." In that moment, Lisa realizes her destiny.

Since allowing Mistress Xia to reemerge, I have felt the ripples of excitement from friends, supporters, and lovers. I have been touched and my eyes widened by the response of the men in my life, an emotional reaction akin to falling to one's knees and saying, "My Queen." There is an almost tangible sense of relief in some quarters to see me coming back to myself, an embracing of my power once again. It's a marvelous thing to be surprised by oneself through others. To finally feel comfortable in one's skin, holding onto the reigns of power firmly yet lightly. To come into one's own, this time having earned through hard experience the strength and compassion to rule wisely. I have tried to be like everyone else. Many, including me, are thankful that I have failed. I'll say it again: it is good be back.

With Gratitude,

Mistress Xia

Embrace the Paradox

2010-05-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Oh my - reading my last few posts, what contradiction! Shame on me? Quite the opposite. As my favorite inspirational writer of writers Brenda Euland once wrote, "Consistency is the horror of the world!" The mercurial ebb and flow of our divine essence is beyond binary logic. Embrace the paradox. . .

Experiment Over, Back to Being Me

2010-05-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we have to diverge from our path to truly appreciate where we were before. I had been anxious about putting myself out there again. I relished the idea of tip-toeing back in, testing the waters a bit. So I experimented - as it turns out, ever-so-briefly - with a different persona, and in a channeling of dark desire, I also embraced the ambiguity and surrender of the switch. Like Catherine Deneuve's icy-hearted masochist Belle Du Jour, I toyed with the cold heat of lurid, semi-anonymous encounters, but for me within a house of domination rather than a so-called house of ill repute. I needed to cast out Xia to find her again. To vandalize my own creation, so that I could burst forth again like a phoenix from the ashes.

And now I am back where I belong: at the helm, with my treasured submissives at my feet. For this is who I am. I can breathe a sigh of relief, to have liberated the Goddess within. She gets to play again! Damn, it's good to be back.

The Machines Took Over

2010-05-07T23:16:00.001-07:00

The Day the Machines Took Over Wall Street.

The Wicked Grounds of Power

2010-05-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Finally made it to Wicked Grounds, a unique coffee shop here in San Francisco that caters to the openly kinky. Even my marginally perverted acquaintances had already made it there, so it was about time! The opportunity arose when my friend Mistress Victoria gave me a call today. She told me she was there with her personal sub P, who was visiting from out of town, and that they were planning on doing a public scene.

The cafe was a quaint little space tucked in the South of Market area, conveniently located just down the street from Mister S Leather & Fetters. I found Victoria in the back, looking smashing in her mix of rocker and vintage pin-up looks. P soon made an appearance decked out in black rubber, his arms restrained against his torso and a breathing/sucking tube attached to his face mask. He was gleefully teetering on edge, having already spent a fortnight in a metal chastity device with 70+ metal teeth pressing against even the thought of an erection. Part of his humiliation was having to explain to airport security why he was setting off the metal detectors!

It was such a fun and relaxing afternoon, drinking tea and snacking as we chatted and casually tormented P with even the slightest touch, he was that sensitized. We zipped up his mask so that he could no longer see, and then he sat back and really went into subspace. I especially liked his gold-coated stiletto boots, which really made him look like a nasty rubber slut!

Victoria ran into another gentleman friend at the cafe. While they caught up, I got to tease and torture her sub 'til he squealed and yipped like a little dog. Then I looked at my watch and realized I'd be late for my personal training session - when I get my butt kicked by a sadistic Vietnamese exercise buff who could be a dominatrix in her own right. I quickly said my good-byes, which gave them all a chuckle after my wham-bam mini-scene. Well, P wasn't chuckling - more like whimpering and cooing, sweet thing!

Before we got into play mode, we had been chatting about how strangely unwelcome switches can feel in the scene. Even though people give lip service to the idea of creating more balance in one's life, when it comes to BDSM, one often feels forced to "choose sides." Even more than that, one's attractiveness as a domme does not necessarily carry over when representing oneself as a switch player. There is less glamour there for some because one is no longer the unyielding, unattainable Venus in Furs.

Yet in most cases, being "strictly domme" is more a delusion than reality. At The Gates, I remember how tiring it was to have to watch my own actions and demeanor like a hawk because certain so-called slaves would become unhinged at any perceived sign of weakness on my part. From making sure I didn't get on my knees when rigging bondage, to abhorring the color pink, to stating that I was being "served" even as I was presented with an exhaustive list of activity requests - the ridiculous symbolism was all that mattered because it was more about fantasy than authentic power exchange, with me as fill-in-the-blank dream domme. Talk about the making of burn out: passive aggressive men who insisted that they were submissive and looking for truly dominant women, yet exacting in their specifications of things like scene details, the mannerisms of the domme, and the kind of attention showered upon them. Like most people, they were skating on the surface, going through the motions, focusing on the materials and goal-acquisition rather than the moment or the journey. Mindlessly grasping, thinking that doing equals being; as if to say you are one way and then to pay for others to treat you as such can make it so.

When it comes to pro dommes, by pushing this misguided fantasy of individuals who are "born to rule", we may actually be encouraging the continued disempowerment of women. Because being 100% dominant is typically a fallacy, the pro BDSM industry makes a joke out of genuine femme power by insisting on an untenable position of "perfection", thereby creating a sense of constant insecurity in the women who practice the craft. By overstretching the truth, we make imposters out of our own powerful selves, placating the existing male-dominated authority with the trifling level of our bold assertions, especially confined as they are to the sexual realm.

I am struck time and time again by how, on a fundamental level, we can all see that women hold the keys to power and that most of what men do as individuals is to attract and bewitch women. Yet on the level of societal structures, we are still dealing with male politicians attempting to take away reproductive and sexual freedoms, dictating not only how we as women should live, work, play, and breed, but also how and if we are allowed to mix any of these things together. What happened to the Goddess? She was pimped out.

This is Late, but. . . Rest in Peace Veronica

2010-05-04T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have been out of the pro domme scene for quite some time, and am not someone who socializes much in the scene. But my curiosity has been reawakened as of late, and after my friend Ren mentioned the message board of Irene Boss, I decided to check it out. It was on that board that I learned of the untimely death of Miss Veronica, pro domme and international fetish model. She was a very special woman who I had the privilege of hanging out with on several occasions over the years.

She took her own life last August, and now I am sitting here in shock and tears - I can't quite believe that it's true, or that I could not know for all this time. I look at her myspace page, which has turned into a memorial to her, and see comments from mutual acquaintances. But I guess this isn't the sort of thing to come up in casual conversation on the rare occasion I run into these people.

Veronica was the real deal. She used her real name. She was genuinely kinky and truly unique. She always stood out to me. The first time I met her was at the Climate Theater space, I believe after Folsom Street Fair. She was so striking and her energy was so open, we struck up a conversation and she told me she was a switch and had just started at The Dominion. A few years later, I saw her at the fetish ball thrown by Mr. S. She had come into her own, had transitioned to independence and was jet-setting around the world for fetish photo shoots. It was three years ago that I ran into her at AVN, looking incredibly stunning in a leather bodysuit with thigh high boots, trolling the GayVN section for twinks (her personal fetish). We spent the afternoon together bonding over our experiences not only as dominatrices but as avid scuba divers. It would only have been a couple years ago that I hung out with her last, took her to the End Up for a night of dancing, then dropped her off at Simone Kross' place.

Wow Veronica, you were an amazing presence that graced this world for not long enough. I feel like this world failed you Veronica, and I am so sorry that you weren't able to make it to 30 (The Daily Show on in the background in my living room: John Stewart interviewing Rosalyn Carter about the dire need for reform in our mental health system). Your memory will live on, you quirky, brilliant girl who shone so bright and went away too soon. R.I.P.

That's all I've got on this. Thanks for listening.

Vanity

2010-05-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel paralyzed to write. Not so much writer's block, as there are usually more than a few ideas swirling in my head, but more of an existential angst - a why does it even matter anyway? So though I pride myself on my autonomy, it does feel good when I meet new people who have been following my blog. I may express weariness with the process at times, as is the case in virtually all creative expenditures. Yet it is like the air I breathe, and I doubt I will ever really stop writing, universe willing.

I have been lightly stepping back into various enterprises to help subsidize the cost of my graduate education. I had thought, half in denial and half in naivete, that I could simply utilize my free hours towards this goal without having it all spill over into the rest of my very busy life. But there is something about doing this work that engenders fixation. Like the myth of Narcissus staring at his reflection in the pond. Maybe it's impossible to disentangle one from the other. Like getting paid to shoot up while trying not to get high (no, I don't do that stuff - still, an apt analogy). The pleasure and the ego stroking are part of the package.

So now, I am trying my best to strike a balance. I do think I'm doing a better job than before. It's nice to have one foot in the vanilla world. Not just to keep grounded, but because everything else seems that much kinkier.

I saw this interesting talk from ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison, former wife and colleague of psychedelic legend Terence McKenna. She spoke of the need to value folk research - the millennia of soul-searching on ayahuasca that has become a part of the knowledge base of Latin American tribes, but which modern researchers too quickly discount. She also spoke of the systematic and brutal repression of traditional herbalists in Western Europe, who also possessed esoteric knowledge about mind-expanding plants. These herbalists and healers were predominantly women.

Countless were silenced and killed to make way for modern, patriarchal structures which channelled power into the hands of male authority. From my own research, I know this happened in the Philippines as well. Women had been leaders in the villages. They were mystics and healers. They were pushed out and replaced by the priests, and then made to fit their powers into a role based on the virgin Mary, with all the impossible challenges such a model evokes. Women had their feet knocked out from under them, their confidence in their own power trampled, and in many ways we are still scrambling to recover from that historic fall.

The thought that keeps coming back to me is what a massive brain drain we still have when it comes to women. And I am not even talking about countries that actively maintain gender inequality. That can almost be seen as the easy part - getting our rights is pretty straight forward. It's in a society that has progressed as far as we have that the intangibles get in the way. Vanity - maybe the church was right in making that a deadly sin. Women are taught to value themselves based on their looks and their femininity. Not only does the maintenance of vanity take away precious time in this world when we could be focusing on more important things, it is a drug in and of itself. It induces mental laziness in women, reinforcing a tendency to skate on the surface. Because batting our eyelashes is all we need to do to have a man take care of things. Women have legal equality in our society, yet we play a double standard. We demand all the rights of men, but also many more privileges.

The time will come when these sacred cows of femininity will get torn down. I often think one sign will be when there will be more female comedians. When we can poke fun at women with the same permission as men, when we can tolerate being laughed at equally as well as men - I think that will be a better sign of having "come a long way" than getting to pick up a gun and fight. That and strap-on play in every bedroom. Amen!

Checking in

2010-04-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

Uh-oh it looks like I've fallen behind on my posting! I've been so busy with end-of-semester scrambling, as well as the addition of new responsibilities in my life. And after the initial high of my reemergence, a lingering question of whether or not I even want to blog. Does it even matter? Yes and no, of course. One thing thats been in my head lately is the idea that perhaps sometime soon, ergonomics will make a quantum leap and it won't hurt so much to sit down to type and click at the computer. At the this point, it is a fairly serious impediment to extending my writing efforts. One day perhaps we'll all be suited up and submerged in tanks of water so we can be completely relaxed while we interface virtually. That is the matrix, isn't it? Speaking of matrix, check out this fascinating article on the Matrix Theory. I am kind of pissed at New Scientist though. They have great articles on cutting edge science, yet their operational backend is still stuck in the dark ages. Trying to get my subscription renewed has been a pain in the ass - calling London, being told I need to get some statement from my bank. It was so ridiculous, I ended up resubscribing via Amazon because it was easier than going through their site! All right, enough pointless venting. Back to my studies. I'll try to write more soon...

Wondercon

2010-04-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

I was at the comic book convention in town this past weekend. In the past few years, it has gotten a lot more crowded. I love it because it is such a nerd fest. Comic books, anime & manga, vampires, the Industrial Victorian look of the steam punks, the Serenity brownshirts, sword & sorcery fantasy like Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons – geek culture is now mainstream culture. But Wondercon still retains its geek roots, with a focus on good-natured fantasy fun without the “trying to be cool” attitude. It’s so comfortable there for me, chortling with others about some obscure Star Trek allusion. Nerds are my people!

I did get slightly weirded out by an interaction with an acquaintance there, who I'll call T. She was madly dashing around meeting dates she had connected with through a dating website called OK Cupid. We met up with one of her cute geeky guys in line for the Arkham Asylum talk. This was going to be a panel discussion with a psychiatrist and psychologist attempting to analyze the various criminals of Batman’s Gotham City. I was intrigued at the concept, but imagined excusing myself at some point during the talk, as these days I get my fill of real-life DSM analysis. There was a lot of excitement about this program and the line winded down the hall and out the doors. As we met up with this guy, the women behind him became incensed at our “cutting” and began to make comments about “tearing heads off” and the like. T began to talk back, telling me that "they couldn't beat us up." All of this was making me feel pretty nervous, and I didn't want to take up someone's place who had been waiting the whole time in line. In an attempt to assuage these angry women, I offered to let them go ahead of us. They were letting in people a few at a time, and it wasn't clear when the limit would be reached. Instead of ameliorating the situation, things actually grew more tense as others behind us insisted on going ahead as well. I quickly decided it wasn’t worth all the trouble and told my friend I was bailing.

I meandered around the mezzanine, watching Transformers and sexy anime girls pose for photos. Later on, I found out that T decided to go looking for me to “make sure I was okay.” When I saw her next, she expressed disappointment that she had missed the talk (and so had her insta-date, the poor sap had followed her lead, but by this time she had moved on and he was nowhere in sight). I told her that I’m a grown-up and that there was no need to sacrifice her pleasure to check on me. She said that was just the kind of person she is. I told her that if I’d really wanted to see the talk and she walked away, I would have let her. She repeated that she was simply acting on her principles of friendship. She was insistent to the point of being argumentative about the justifications for her trying to find me. Mind you, this is not someone who is my best friend. Even further, this act of entangling herself in my affairs only reinforces my desire to not pursue her friendship. This is what bothers me. How people are so chained to their etiquette, their guilt- and shame-inducing “shoulds.” They go about bending their life in an attempt to suit the needs of others. They are not liberated to do what honors them in any moment, their first priority is making sure that they come off well in the eyes of others. Why can’t we all just assume that we can each take care of ourselves? That way each of us can focus on just that, instead of having to think (for example) “I’d really like to just sit here for a moment by myself in silence but I see so and so over there and if I don’t immediately go and say hi they will think I am rude.” In any case, T came back the next day and spent the afternoon hunting down another of her friends because she wanted to get high and he had the stuff. Spinning in circles, not seeing what is there. That’s how I feel about people like her.

I dressed up in a corset one day, my red satin Chinese dress the next. I didn’t wear too much make-up, just wanting to look into it but not distractingly glammed out. I get so much attention for my looks, I am not one who needs constant validation that way; there are times to flaunt it and other times to lay low. Sometimes it’s nice to be hidden in plain sight, to let that specialness be known only to those who are paying attention. It’s like the metaphor of the masked superhero. Superpowered, a gifted individual, with the capacity and desire to use her powers to affect positive change. Yet the mask of the superhero conveys a sense of humility. For when one is truly superpowered, there is nothing to prove, only good deeds to be done. It is choosing a life of anonymity, instead of one full of the roar of accolades. It can be disquieting at times, yet ultimately liberating, to choose to stay in the shadows. Out of the spotlight, we can embody the flow, instead of being trapped in self-conscious reflexiveness. We are free to connect with our truth from moment to moment, rather than pinned down like an insect under glass. That light we shine on things, ostensibly to make us feel better about ourselves, often has the effect of piercing the energy away. It’s almost like the concept in quantum physics where the act of observing changes the outcome. Not that observing is bad – as a vipassana meditator, I am a believer in observing to gain insight. Yet there is another kind of observing that is not so mindful; it’s that automatic, compulsive fixation on our own egos that is the opposite of true observation. So I believe it is through the quiet work, in the shadows of society, that some of the most impactful change can happen. Not the ideas whose originators are so busy protecting them that they trip over themselves, but the memes that flow freely. That is where we are evolving. Invisible chains, rippling through with the energy of our actions and intentions.

Everything & Nothing

2010-03-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

The other night I was looking at TS porn from Asia. I always knew when a Japanese model came up on the slide show because her make-up, hair, clothes, and posture would convey that culture's sexual aesthetic of the young, innocent doe-eyed girl. This contrasted nicely with the more knowing, brazenly sexy aesthetic of many of the Thai kathoey.

When I lean heavily towards any particular preference, I notice how the others that are not in my sights can seem absolutely digusting. Yet pick another night, and my mood could be totally different, with the things that formerly seemed disgusting now making me really hot. This has made me think about how we create false dichotomies. In aesthetics, there is young vs. mature, innocent vs. knowing, blonde vs. brunette, fair vs. exotic, skinny vs. shapely, petite vs. statuesque, dominant vs. submissive, real vs. fake, down-to-earth vs. classy, femme vs. butch. Which ever ones we like, we think are "the best." Yet the longer I have played in this bounty of creation, the more I see that our own tastes can be ever changing. And thank the gods for that, for then we can taste life's many sweetnesses.

This binary thinking permeates our very belief systems and spiritual practices, where we search relentlessly for the "right" path, judging the ones we are not on as "incorrect." We over-apply our faculties of judgment, in our strenuous efforting to "get it right." Maybe Battlestar Galatica's Caprica is on to something with this monotheism vs. polytheism story line. Maybe our current paradigm limits us to seeking only one right way.

What I'm realizing more and more is that the truth lies in diversity, in all its mess, uncategorizable, contradictory. The path to strive for and protect is not any one path, but Diversity itself - this is the thing of value. Paths of peace and mutual respect, of course (and excellence works for me, but yes that is a preference). Beyond that, there is nothing that needs to be one way or another. Omnia et nihilum.

On my mind...

2010-03-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

The one that got away... when I let the domain name www.burningquestion.com lapse. At least it's being put to use now. For a while there, it was being wasted as an Amazon redirect.

An injustice that irks me... that a place like Mitchell Brothers/O'Farrell Theater can flaunt itself as a virtual legal brothel in the city while women like me who have the talent to run a kick-ass house of domination (something sorely missing from San Francisco) are too afraid to even try because of the very real threat of legal repercussions. Shouldn't such an enterprise, with its limited sensuality, be welcomed in a town where strip club handjobs are a dime a dozen? It seems like another case of male-centric double standards.

A meme that I am noticing, that I seem to have helped spread... The use of blogger as one's primary website. When I decided to downsize from my xia-bdsm.com website, I found google's free hosting (and pre-set warning page) an easy way to park my images and highlight my blog using custom domain names. Now I see numerous BDSM providers on Eros doing the same. I spent way too much time managing my site before, though I admit I enjoyed obsessing over it. With grad school, I just don't have time for that kind of self indulgence!

What I'm excited about... Meeting new faces in the kink scene, exploring means of advocacy for kink and poly issues within the mental health arena, playing with old friends, getting a second wind, remembering what drew me to all of this in the first place.

The Great Happiness Space & other Japanese Adventures

2010-03-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

If you have not seen it already, I highly recommend watching the documentary about Japanese host boys called The Great Happiness Space - it's available streaming on Netflix. This film caused an important shift in my outlook, fundamentally altering how I view companion work and female/male relations. After years of sessioning as a professional dominant at The Gates, I had started to develop the all-too-common, cynical attitude towards men and the work, as well as a mindless acceptance of my own complicity in games of deception which traded false intimacy for ego strokes, gifts and money. I had begun to lump all men into the category of liars, perpetrators, and insensitive, selfish assholes. Conversely, I had begun to see myself and the other women as slighted victims of men's transgressions.

Yet this documentary helped me to see that that this dynamic is not one dictated or limited by gender. When men are the providers and women the clients - as is the case in this documentary - the same complaints surface but with the sexes flipped. In the film, veteran host boys speak in jaded tones about how their female clients are selfish and manipulative. They complain about rude things said to their face and say that the women don't feel as obligated to be polite because they are paying. One host boy said they were all liars, and that he no longer saw them as attractive women but only as money in the bank. It was amazingly eye-opening for me to hear these Japanese male companions saying the same sort of bitter complaints that I have heard come out of the mouths of female sex workers in the States. All of a sudden, I realized that the misery we had all been party to wasn't a case of biology as destiny, but really was a construct of our time and place. And that the touchy dynamics of pay-for-play is a dance of the human condition, not a battle between women as providers and men as clients.

I had an opportunity to see the host boys working the corners in Kubukicho, Tokyo last spring. Kubukicho is called a red light district but it's not like the dank and dirty places in the west, filled with shame-ridden folks and junkies with nobody making eye contact. No, Kubukicho aka "The Sleepless Town," is jammed full of hip young people, arcades, restaurants and bars, as well as the companion- and erotic-oriented venues. Even in the ordinary bars, you may pay a table fee in addition to a drink minimum, in exchange for which you are conversed with by one of the employees, male or female.

Paid company seems to be an accepted part of Japanese culture, whether erotic in connotation or not. In the crazed mega-technology district called Akihabara, we had our maid cafe experience. Here, sweet girl geeks in modest dresses with aprons and frilly hats served us on their knees. As kinky as that sounds, it was really quite innocent. Others in the cafe included a group of young people, two older women, and one lone young foreign man. We did actually find a BDSM dungeon during our foray through the city, not too far from Harajuku. We noticed a woman in full kimono escorting a man in a business suit out to a waiting car. After some time, we entered the discrete little office building where she had retreated to, and guessed that she was now behind a door that read, "Sakura," which means cherry blossoms. The building also held a graveyard-themed restaurant. We were about to leave when we noticed a beautifully wrought sign, in the style of samurai art, which depicted a ball-gagged man under the foot of a dominatrix. We rung the doorbell and a man with many facial piercings, long hair and a goatee answered. A woman in a corset in the background appeared to be getting herself out of the remnants of shibari suspension. Another corsetted woman flitted across the doorway. We were intrigued and excited. Unfortunately, our Japanese was virtually nil, as was the proprietor's English, so in the name of safety and common-sense, we called it a night, scenes from Tokyo Decadence flashing through our head.

I had already seen The Great Happiness Space, so I wasn't as perplexed as my friend when I saw the cadres of attractive young men in stylish dress clothes with big, highlighted hair flirting with Japanese women passers-by, though I was still delighted and surprised to actually see the boys in action. We passed by medium-size billboards with rows of their headshots, each one like an anime come to life. There is no corollary to this phenomenon in the west, and my friend, who hadn't seen the film, insisted that their customers must be men. Then we passed by the entrance of a club. Two giggly young women made their way down an ornate spiral staircase. At the top of the stairs, two hosts boys, looking like impeccable rockers in their designer duds, gave them the royal wave.

The full title of the documentary is The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief, but I don't really agree with the latter part of the phrase, especially because I think it skews the host boy phenomenon to fit it into a more traditional view of female-male relations, with women as passive weaklings and men as the ruthless aggressors. The film itself does not back up this view, but rather shows men and women both engaging in a range of behaviors from combative to supportive, and from affirming to unethical. If a woman familiar with the provider point of view had been behind this film, I don't think it would have the same title, nor do I think it would have been quite so negative a take on the host boy's role. Certainly, the relationship between clients and professional companions can be tainted by exploitation. Yet to tar the entire enterprise as innately without merit seems too simplistic. Similarly, while I loved the twisted scenarios which lit up the erotic classic Tokyo Decadence (the scene with the dominatrix was a pivotal early influence for me), in order to fully enjoy it, I end up having to force myself to ignore the film makers mixed messages (portrayals of seemingly liberated women engaged in kinky, tawdry sex on the one hand, portrayals of the same women as heroin addicts and lost, needy loners on the other), messages which I think reflect a need to reaffirm the traditional female-male dynamic.

My Own Best Friend

2010-03-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

Women sing and cry about not being seen or heard. Yet if that other person truly did not see you, then you were also not seeing them. For if you were, then why would you stay? At the very least, you have willingly put blinders on. We cannot cling to our sense of injustice and abuse if we allow ourselves to fully grasp this truth.

Why do patterns of dysfunction keep playing out in some people's lives? Of course, this is a complicated question. Yet at the heart of it, I think it's partly that we have memories of pleasure and connection along with the ones of trauma and dissolution. The awful truth is that love and pain are too often intertwined, and the things exposed to us at a young age become engrained within us, so that life's impetus can be a journey of undoing and remaking of oneself. To be whole again, from the fragmented pieces.

Sometimes in the course of that journey, we are drawn to that which can only lead to our undoing, the link between our deepest impulses and our self-destruction too strong a pull to deny. If we come close enough to the flame, perhaps we will learn. For some of us, it takes more than being singed - for the more we can take on, the more we seemingly must endure to learn. Somehow, life rarely pushes us far enough. So on and on, we seek the extremities of experience, for our salvation or destruction, whichever comes first. And if we manage to escape from a hell of our own making, wounded yet spirit stubbornly intact... maybe then we will have come close enough to the vast void to say our prayers of gratitude, and finally become the loving keeper of ourselves, protectors of a unique spark of creation.

---

Elektra is a beast, four feet long, thick, with a beautiful golden brown pattern. She is a three-year-old royal python. A slight dilemma has emerged since taking her home. She is a hunter and her appetite leans toward the living. I have not been able to wean her off her taste for live rats. In one sense, it is easier than handling a frozen one, which in its own way is creepier. Some of my friends have tried to guilt me for sacrificing living rats to my snake. None of the naysayers are vegetarian, so this argument doesn't really fly for me. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to get closer to the source, not be so detached from the experience of being a carnivore. We will see. I realize I have a soft spot for predators. Part of me wants to embrace the whole world. I am learning it is all right to want to connect and at the same time, that boundaries are very important for my own self-preservation. Immersing myself in the healing profession has helped me draw those lines, allowing me to reach out and connect while maintaining my own integrity. I am learning that connection does not necessarily have to mean baring my naked soul to everyone, that real intimacy is a gift shared with a special few, and that there is nothing wrong with taking care of myself first. As Tracy Chapman sings, "This Time, I'm gonna be my own best friend." I am still learning, thank you universe.

Ch Ch Changes

2010-03-02T00:48:00.000-08:00

I'm a science junkie and read New Scientist every week as well as the science section of The Economist and the comic book/sci fi/all things geeky site io9.com. It's pretty incredible - all the latest developments coming from seemingly every field imaginable. From potentially revolutionary energy technologies like the $3/gallon algae-based jet fuel being tested by the military and the Bloombox fuel cell, to new pieces of the puzzle like a proposed new theory which would finally explain gravity's force using the holographic model of the universe (on a side note, Michael Talbot's Holographic Universe was a seminal work for me when I read it over a decade ago), to the hacking of the code which forms all life on this planet and the subsequent creation of new proteins based on a novel four-codon structure. This last development may be a complete game-changer for life as we know it.

Things are seemingly moving at a breakneck pace in so many directions, no doubt made possible by the immense processing capacity we now have in this computer age. Accelerating change is a reality. And I'm not entirely sure our social or political institutions can keep up. Culturally, many shifts are happening as well. I see much cause for hope and celebration, yet people still cling fearfully to cynicism and negativity. There are real things to be concerned about, issues we need to stay on top of - yet reflexively sinking into the same old grousing is the opposite of where we want to be. We must stay awake not only to the dangers, but also to the wondrous possibilities. It has always been this way.

Whatever time we find ourselves in, we think this is the time it will be different. There are those who believe this accelerating change is leading to an end point, a singularity. To me, even radical transformation will likely lead to a continuation rather than some grand finale.

I have been experimenting with my dreams lately. Willing myself to become lucid in the dreamscape is as difficult as willing myself to become lucid when I'm awake. Yet in both settings, such a goal is a worthy challenge - to increase one's consciousness, to connect with the timeless divine, to see through the illusion and transcend boundaries. My explorations in this vein only reinforce my sense that, no matter how much we accomplish in this material plane of existence, it is only scratching the surface of all that is and all that may come to be.

RuPaul's Drag Race

2010-02-24T16:51:00.000-08:00

I've just discovered RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. A reality show in the same vein as America's Top Model, this show features fabulous drag queens in competition with one another. What really impressed me was the level of self-awareness, maturity and personal evolvement demonstrated by the participants.

I tend to avoid reality shows and find that I don't have much time for TV except for my science fiction favorites like Battlestar Galactica. When visiting friends or family, I occasionally get trapped into watching drivel like Rock of Love or Millionaire Matchmaker (the latter show certainly reinforces my sense of gratitude for the pure and generous relationships with which I have been blessed). Reality show participants in the straight world are commonly narcissistic, emotionally stunted and vindictive. While there definitely was some posturing on RuPaul's Drag Race, there was also a higher degree of self reflection and emotional maturity.

Often after the initial exchange of bad mouthing, the competitors were able to step back and re-analyze the situation in a more objective and forgiving manner. I suppose this is already to obvious to some, but for me it spoke to how those who regularly experience oppression - in this case, for being gay and drag queens - have the potential to be more enlightened than the average person. In a world that does not accept them for who they are, they learn early on to transcend the bullshit and focus on what's truly important. There is a lesson there for us all. This show got me teary-eyed with joy at its whole-hearted embracing of a too-often ridiculed community. Thank heavens for Logo!

Binary? Guilty as Charged!

2010-02-13T13:27:00.000-08:00

A friend commented that it's either all or nothing with me. Yes, when it rains, it pours! I have had more than a few good laughs about that one. I know I can be binary, coming at life in fits and spurts. Over the years, I have smoothed out a little. Yet I know this is part of my nature, that when I'm on, it's all the way. So I work with it, ride it as far as I can, then jump off when necessary - all the while trying to maintain that meta-awareness that can help give me pause at key moments.

I've learned to enjoy the balancing act, finding my own brand of moderation not in a lack of extremism but in a balance of extremes. But it isn't all just leaping from one thing to another. In some ways, I am a slow stewer. I take things in and let them steep. And as more things are taken in, the pressure builds. At some point, all that energy comes bursting through. It only looks sudden and unexpected.

So many of the cliches contain nuggets of wisdom, which makes sense since they 've stayed with us all this time. Three steps forward, two steps back - I think this more aptly describes how we learn that most of us would like to admit. Mistakes are necessary to learn from, yet we delude ourselves into thinking there is a thing called perfection and then kick ourselves for not holding up in comparison. As I have mentioned before, I only really found my rhythm when I allowed myself to start making mistakes. As I've passed my twenties, I've begun to see a split take place between those of us who continue on the path of growth and those who stagnate into bitterness. The difference seems to stem, at least in part, from the degree of flexibility one possesses. Those who are rigid and rate themselves against external standards seem to be at a disadvantage. Whereas those who have learned to balance gentleness and a sense of focus within themselves seem to thrive. You can tell a lot just by looking at someone's face - what expression is it set in? What is the look in their eyes? We can never really hide the truth, though our words may tell another story.

I have an interesting instructor in one of my classes. He challenges with the level of intellectual dexterity he requires, often making students feel a bit stupid for their comments by cutting them off and attacking their points. I like that he's impatient with mental laziness, though I can see his approach has the effect of cowing most of the class into quiet submission. Not surprisingly, our verbal tussling only encouraged me to speak up more as the class went on. He's seen that I won't back down, and that I know how to reason to substantiate my points. The truth is, I do like a good, rational argument - so few people know how to engage in logical debate, it can be exhilarating to find that someone else in the room is actually awake. We will have to see if this observation plays out, but so far he seems to coddle the few boys in the class and be more critical of comments from the rest of us, begrudglingly conceding my points while heaping praise on one of my male peers (I did get the last word in class the other day, which of course, works for me). I find myself stepping back from the immediacy of the class to analyze him as a potential therapy client, observing his body language and tracking his comments for hints of his past experience. I know this is a strategy to leverage my sense of power. But hell, he sits comfortably in his authority at the head of the class, so why not summon mine? I realize a lot of the other students in class, especially with so many of them recently coming from undergrad, are, whether consciously or not, seeking his approval first and foremost. When he doesn't automatically give it to them, they withdraw. His style seems dismissive of this, like by being off-putting he's trying to show us it's about gaining his respect through critical thinking, not having him pat us on the head for being good girls. It should be a stimulating class.

What made me think of that instructor was some comment he made about how, back in the days of Seneca et. al, people wrote things simply to convey their ideas to others and not to gain tenure (obviously one of his hot buttons, as he mentioned it more than once). I too have cursed the nature of society, where one's art and ideas get whored out to make ends meet. Yet here I am, blogging for no other reason than because I feel like it. There is hope, dear professor - you just have to stay open to finding it.

I'm off to South Beach, Miami. Have a great week!

Coming back to My Life

2010-02-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

Having exorcised demons, I am coming back to my life with a vengeance.

Lost in a hall of mirrors, before long I thought the reflection in the mirror was actually me. But my doppelganger liked the things I did not, embraced places I dared not go. I suppose there was some form of liberation there, to sneak in amongst the others, to try to go that way. Yet slowly, almost inperceptibly, I was draining away. I knew it in my dreams, where I would scream out, "I'm a prisoner!" or literally try to walk away in my sleep. My inner self knew what my outer self stubbornly denied. And so I walked that path for a while, long enough to start feeling it as a relentless beat, a pain which wracked me so hard, my body rebelling against the lie, I could no longer move with fluidity. Is this how the rest live? I wondered, and yet I knew the tragic truth.

Live life directly, don't take someone else's word for it - this has been the closest thing to a mantra for me. The mind whined and whimpered in the corner like a little lost dog. A blindness of the senses prevailed, somehow soothing in its suffocation. How could this amnesia overtake me? Falling without reason, too afraid to reach out and find one. I had never been this way before. In my three and a half decades of life, it had been mostly glory, shame banished to the recesses. Yet the dark coil of wanting, yes like a moth to a flame, kept me circling this thing until it was done. I have lived through it. No - not without a scratch - but still, no regrets. For there was beauty, even in the road to destruction.

Going Red

2010-02-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

I had a nice long break from grad school over the holidays, it was good to decompress and take stock of my first semester. You might be surprised to hear that I just officially started my graduate studies, since I've mentioned taking classes here and there over the years. I moved up to San Francisco shortly after earning my undergrad degree in History. Once here, I continued to pursue learning for its own sake, seeking out myriad subjects - both in the classroom as well as in the dungeon and elsewhere - which could expand my understanding of the world and enrich my ability to see it in all its greatness. So it has been a long and winding road to get to where I am now, pursuing an advanced degree in this particular field. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Yet once ensconced in the situation, finding my rhythm within my cohort of classmates, circle of professors and clinical supervisors, I have found myself chafing a bit at the role of clinician-in-training. That little voice in my head that, up until this point, had been advising me to dress a particular way to "look the part" has now rebelled against the idea of being just another pony-tailed, cardigan-wearing, smooth-talking arbiter of convention. That's not really the job I am working towards, now is it? To become an enforcer of the normal? How deathly boring that began to sound.

In a stroke of admittedly impulsive inspiration, I dyed my hair an intense shade of red. The color is a bright burgandy with a hint of magenta, reminiscent of Dr. Pepper. By no means does it look natural! It's Europunk, superhero, anime fun.

It feels great to break out of the mold a little, let that natural-born freakiness come through a bit more. Pretty blondes and brunettes come up to me at school telling me that they love my hair, confiding that they once had it that shade back in the day. All of a sudden, I feel like the cool, edgy chick - which is great, because I am. We'll see how long I keep it this way. My hair, like my entire being, likes to be in flux, endlessly transforming from one stage to another.

The Question of Authority

2010-02-05T19:28:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, I started doing over-the-phone counseling and consultations. I have a few different listings, the most popular one being my expert advice on alternative sexualities. It's really quite striking how different it is to chat with men about issues of sexuality using the label of sexual health advisor, as opposed to Mistress. The sense of deference, respectfulness and professional decorum I had wanted and expected as a domme is now there for me. It would seem that as I journey toward becoming an "expert" in the conventional sense, I am finally finding the level of interaction which most suits me.

It is a shame that as a dominant woman, it is so hard to be taken seriously. When men would call me up as Mistress Xia, there would so often be rudeness and a passive-aggressive undertone, with the presumption that letting it all hang out sexually was completely acceptable and without the need to ask for permission. Well, look at the difference between the so-called legitimate telephone advice sites and adult phone sites like Niteflirt - that says it all.

One interesting development in advising as a sex expert is the predominance of men who call wanting to discuss their first sexual experience with another man. of course, I get my fair share of callers who are into kink in one form or another. Yet this other group of men is new to me, in that they certainly did not reveal themselves in any great number during my session days. They are typically in their 40s or 50s, and often had never really entertained the thought of doing such a thing until spontaneously availing themselves of a serendipitous opportunity. Yet in the act itself, they find liberation through an unmatched intensity of eroticism and hang-up free pleasure-taking.

While I suspect some have had these inclinations lying dormant, without their conscious awareness, in discussing their previous interactions with women, I detect a pattern of submissiveness on the men's part and frigidity on the women's part. These men seem to be in need of having the other party be the aggressor, and not a lot of women fit the bill. Moreover, many American women are still quite repressed in their sexual expression, afraid that if they do more than just lay there they will be taken for a slut. And so it makes sense that as some men turn the corner toward middle age, and find that they have never really satisfied their sexual urges in an uninhibited, balls-to-the-wall kind of way, that they would turn to another man.

Sometimes gender roles can be such a troublesome barrier to having hot sex. And so not having to worry about that particular power dynamic can feel incredibly freeing. I am happy to report that pretty much everyone I have talked to on the subject is only minimally distressed by this development, and they typically leave the conversation feeling even better about it than before. For the most part, they are at peace and simply want to be able to express this secret joy with someone, knowing that it probably wouldn't make the best water cooler conversation with the other boys in the office.

I'm so jazzed to be back blogging. There are all these thoughts and ideas, big and small, that I'd like to share. That tap of creative energy has been turned back on and I am feeling like myself again. Thanks universe!

Pop Culture Tangents of Love & Hate

2010-02-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

A former sissy of mine (former in that he no longer serves me - he still is a sissy!) turned me onto Lady Gaga. I just watched her Grammy performance with Elton John. I even got a little weepy, it was so beautiful to see a hitmaker who is also a true artist: provocative, multi-layered, fearless and extremely talented. The Fuse interview I watched of her only confirmed her astonishingly real presence, which makes so many of the others out there seem like mere hustlers in comparison.

It is so refreshing to see a freak-loving pop star really have fun with the elements of the genre. I think we've all grown a bit tired of the vapid popular girls of high school as a template for divadom.

Speaking of which, in an attempt to gauge the status of popular culture (and torture myself with shite), I occasionally channel flip. I found myself on the Disney channel watching the dead-eyed little sister of Britney Spears play just such a character on her own show. Let's forget about the fact that in real life, as a teenage mother, she's not the best role model. The dialogue on this show was mind-numbingly inane, reeking of suffocatingly conformist attitudes. But what really got to me is the way they portray this one character. She is obviously supposed to be the "smart girl," with her glasses and interjections of arcane information, which result in the obligatory "you're so weird" face cringes and eye rolls of everyone else. In one scene, she is french kissing a fat boy. He then asks her if she had tuna for lunch. She shreiks in embarrassment and madly applies breath spray to her mouth. What utter bullshit. Now that Disney has bought Marvel, I am scared of what they will do to my favorite femme comic book heroes and villains. Will they turn them into insecure idiots? I sometimes think these Hollywood players are so lost in their own game, where virtually every woman has to whore it or at least act like one, they forget that the real world (or at least the Bay Area - my refuge!) isn't nearly as fucked up.

I also recently caught up with the latest videos from Shakira. I first fell in love with Shakira when she was still a brunette ingenue and only singing in spanish. I memorized the lyrics to her "Donde Estan Los Ladrones?" album and it helped infuse the passion of the language within me. So it was with mixed feelings that I watched her transform into a blonde vixen, sexing it up and shaking her hips. I was afraid that she had turned into just another generic sexpot. All these years, I've kept my distance. Yet I was intrigued to read an article by her in a year-end report by The Economist about the schools she has started in Columbia. I decided to catch up with her. Watching her current videos, I see a rising maturity, a coming onto her own - I love seeing women emerge into their prime. Before she was a girl, not yet ready to flaunt her sexual power. But now it seems that she has learned to hone that energy, to celebrate it and use it for good. She knows how to play the game, while maintaining her strength and individuality.

These divas of our age - Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Shakira - play the same conceptual role as the famous courtesans of 19th Century France. They are unobtainable objects of desire, universally lusted after, emulated and adored, symbols of brazen feminine sexual power. And they are all doing interesting work at the moment, seemingly feeding off each other's creative impulses. It gives me hope, in some way, that this is happening. It's hard to see when we are in the midst of it, but this and other signs - such as the upsurge in well-written, intelligent shows for television - may be pointing to a cultural renaissance of sorts. We will see. . .

Back from Exile

2010-02-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

It's been over a year since I last posted anything here. My self-imposed exile had a lot to do with moving on from professional domination and starting a new chapter in my life. But in the process, it seems I have also cut out my tongue. I've trifled with the idea of starting another blog under a different name. Yet here is a ready-made audience for me, and there certainly is a draw to knowing that my writing is actually being read! And so here I am, back to my musings in this half-veiled confessional.

Quite some time ago now, I had an acclaimed writer who was my friend, lover and submissive talk up the idea of starting a book. He had such an exalted confidence in me, it was a thrill to know that he thought I have what it takes to "make it" as a great writer. Yet when he walked me through what it might be like, the attention and the criticism in that literary spotlight, I felt myself momentarily live through the majesty and the scrutiny, and I found it all wanting.

Society loves the driven. Too bad I have so little to prove. As the years go by and I gain snippets of the unchanging wisdom which underlies the illusion of this world, I find myself buying into the accepted paradigm of success less and less. We are evolving and it is beyond me or any one person, or even species. I breathe, I move, I feel, I write, and life cycles on.

My exile was for another reason as well. There was a shrinking away, a filling with shame, a brief trip down a torrid and tormented path. It feels like a dream now, one which slowly, relentlessly transformed into something closer to a nightmare. Though I will never deny the bliss and the high adventure - and words can only approximate the finer edges of truth - the unmistakable judgment which eventually burst through the blindness of my self-control is that it was truly a bad romance. It's been months since it all ended, and I am still shaking off the mental fog of that hallucination. Writing again, no doubt, is part of that healing.

I'm back! Welcome to 2010 dear readers. More later, I promise.

~Namaste

Taking a Break from Blogging

2009-01-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. I wanted to let my readers know that I am taking a break from blogging. My head is in a different space at the moment, feeling the need for down time aware from the spotlight. Writing in this form has been a great passion, and I doubt this will be my last post (long-time readers may recall I've taken a few months off more than once since I started this blog in '03). I am doing well, busy with a new intellectual direction; feeling content, energized, filled with and surrounded by lovingkindness, faith and joy - and oh yes, still very kinky! For me, there is no denying the allure of power exchange. But well, I just want these experiences to be for myself right now.

Life can be so beautiful when we say yes and let that magic in. May all of you enjoy yourselves to the fullest learning, laughing, lusting and loving. Keep the faith! Until next time. . .
~Carpe Diem~

Getting through Finals

2008-12-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

I have had requests to post something - thanks for your interest! I'm in the midst of finals, then out of town til the 11th. I will write when I can. Kinky dreams...

Midwifing Through the Bush Years

2008-11-13T08:44:00.000-08:00

I've set up an auto-reply on my email and graciously passed on my tried and true to trusted cohorts. Months ago, I turned off my appointment line. And before that, I had already taken down my ads and commercial site. My decision to close this chapter of my life - sessions and dungeon rentals, interviews and checkpoints, inquiries and reviews - has been a long time in coming, as readers of my blog are likely aware.

My hesitation arose from my sense of caring and responsibility towards my cadre of submissives. I know all too well how much they put on the line by exposing their innermost secrets and offering up their bodies as they do. I would not say that the game of pain and subjugation attracts more dysfunctional souls than any other pursuit, it's simply easy to hide it there. So I felt it my duty to watch over my devotees, guiding and challenging them on their journeys of self-discovery, through the grueling moments to the heights of bittersweet, blissful surrender.

Yet there was a click. A sudden realization that I did not want to do this anymore and that I did not need to. A sense of relief, that I could let this go, because we had made it through the darkness into the dawn of a new age. In fact, it was the day after the presidential election. I didn't see the larger significance at first. Until I remembered how I got here. It was after 9/11 that I embraced my motto "carpe diem" and dared myself to live out my deliciously devious fantasies. Of course, there were other factors at that time, like the hot Eurasian pro-switch I made out with all night at Bondage-a-go-go who introduced me to the industry, then my best friend's sudden announcement of her desire to apprentice to a dominatrix, as well as my vanilla job fatigue, my boredom with swinging, and my desire for one last dash of frivolity at the end of my 20s.

But 9/11 and its aftermath had the greatest impact. I was working hard and playing even harder, popping ecstasy on weekends and jet-setting around to decadent parties full of beautiful people. Things were good, almost too good. It was like waking up from a dream. We were thrust into scary, ambiguous times. And we could not console ourselves with the certainty that we were still the good guys. I felt the grimness set in. I am quite sensitive to collective energy, to the flavor of the milieu. At times I wish this was less the case. But if felt right to tap into those tumultuous undercurrents, to connect with the pain and the suffering and the rage, as we hunkered down in our enslavement to an age of simple-mindedness and deceit. I midwifed through the Bush years, riding the dark waves as we all grew numb to hope. And so it is fitting that I felt this shift so completely - in my body, mind and spirit - the day after our historic election. The audacity of hope, indeed.

A New Era

2008-11-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I got my birthday wish! So things are feeling very different for me now. Turning 35, losing a woman who was like a second mother to me last week, yesterday's historic presidential election and my impending entrance to grad school... You know, lately every time I write in my blog, I get an email from someone new who wants to connect. I just don't have the time or inclination, no matter how sweet or enticing these notes may be. It just feels like time to pull back.

This feels like a new era to me. I'm breathing a sigh of relief. And I'm finally admitting to myself that it's time to move on, even from my trusted, loyal stable.

To fans of this blog, no worries! You can't shut me up that easily ;-)

Requiem

2008-10-27T11:10:00.000-07:00

For a brave, strong lady who fought the good fight 'til the very end. You inspired me with your fiery spirit and I will miss you.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

Not Much to Say

2008-10-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't been inspired to blog lately. Here and there I'll have a fleeting idea that I could run with, but nothing that really moves me to sit down and bang it out on the keyboard. There's lots of stuff going on in my life right now. And above and beyond my immediate predicament, I feel like I'm holding my breath waiting for this heart-stopping presidential election to be over. Things like blogging seem so small in comparison with the global financial crisis and this historic election. And I have been swamped with school as well. I guess my priorities are shifting.

I'm happy to report that I rarely think about anything having to do with professional domination these days. I used to compulsively check out Max Fisch and other sites to glean the latest gossip and news. Thankfully, I'm too busy now and have more pressing matters to take care of. Somehow I'm reminded of this old episode of the Twilight Zone that had these two kids swim from the bottom of their swimming pool to this magical land of children, where they were free from their parents' shouting matches, harsh recriminations and abuse. At first, they could still hear their mother's voice calling to them - and they could even go back if they wanted, so long as they could hear it - but with each day the sound faded a little, the door closing between the two worlds.

Busy with Studies, Happy to Move On

2008-10-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

I am so busy with school, and this will likely be the case for the next few years! I am loving it, but it has given me less time to blog. I am still writing - summaries, analyses, arguments and reports. I find myself challenged in new ways in that respect. In the past, I'd always rested on my laurels, relying on my innate facility. But I am no longer interested in taking the easy way out. I know enough now to realize that often times the work involved is there for a reason, that each experience can be an opportunity to expand one's understanding and skills, and that shirking it off can end up only cheating oneself.

It makes me chuckle now to think how caught up I was in the pro domme gig. It was awesome and I have no regrets. But it is liberating to not be focused on that level anymore. I can't believe how much I had started to worry about how pretty I am and how competitive I had begun to feel towards other women. I mean, the gods gave me my looks and bisexuality so that I wouldn't have to be like that, for heaven's sake! Admittedly, I still take a peak at all the domme boards and review sites for a vicarious thrill. When I was in it, I couldn't stand to look at those things, I felt so laid-out bare vulnerable as someone in the business, the subject of pointless petty discussions on such vulgar topics as my strap-on technique. Ok I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite like that, to be sex-positive and disdain such things, but really it has to do with one's underlying philosophy and approach as a Mistress, and for me that meant attempting to instill a high degree of dignity and discretion to the craft. When the queen steps down from the pedestal to consort with the submissively-inclined and perverted, must she necessarily wallow in muck? I think not!

Another aspect of the work that I will not miss are some of the entanglements I found myself getting into with session playmates. I never did the dating thing in high school, having surmised that my male peers at the time were simply not mature or deserving enough to engage with. I was content to read my pornography and play with myself until I got to college. So what a bizarre surprise to find echoes of the sort of dysfunctional, childish relationships I witnessed but did not participate in during my teenage years - echoes in the random dynamics I fell into with so-called regulars. Thankfully, as I refined my outward presentation via my website and blog, I scared most of the less evolved ones away! But what a trip, to find myself dealing with such regressive behavior during the highly personal interactions which occurred in session, when I had so deftly avoided such silliness in my real life.

Meditating & Headbanging

2008-10-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a three-day silent meditation retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains. It turned out to be mostly women, with a range of ages and races. We had a lovely circle, wisdom through the ages.

Communing with nature in stillness was great, but I must admit it was good to get back to our scarily exciting real world, with all the fantastical financial events going on around the globe.

Funny, I pulled up this video to play for myself when I got back - a song called "Total Immortal" by AFI. Perhaps a bit of yang to the yin of my retreat. Healthy vegetarian meals, refraining from violence of any kind including the killing of insects, abstaining from indulgences and intoxicants, bowing, bowing and more bowing - the peace, purity and respectfulness of it is beautiful.

Yet true Oneness embraces the whole, including the darkness.

As one who plays with sadomasochism and dominance/submission, I find myself attuned to the shadows as well as the light. This often is not addressed enough in spiritual inquiry, as if by ignoring it, it will go away, the unfavored twin of the circle. Or by condemning it, as many religions do, it will whither away in the glaring light. What a violent thing, to want to scrub everything clean. In the name of the holy, no less.

You know I used to be a metalhead when I was an angry teenager, went to Metallica's final And Justice For All concert and used to go to sleep to their song "Fade to Black." I guess there's still a little headbanger in me!

Yes on Prop K - Take a Stand for Sexual Freedom

2008-09-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

All right dear friends, here we are with the first hints of Autumn in the air. So much change and flux everywhere. Whether it's a Chinese curse or a blessing, we are most definitely living in interesting times!

Amidst this goliath financial crisis and the culture wars of our upcoming presidential election, I have found solace immersing myself in my studies. It's been great to make new friends in my classes and connect with them on such a gratifyingly cerebral level. After my 6-year obsession with all things pro domme, it's awesome to switch gears and find myself discussing the ideas of Neitchze, Goedel and Freud on a regular basis.

But alas, there is always something to shake me back to reality.

I held my breath and felt my muscles tighten as one of my professors related a tale of a transvestite who was married to one of her patients. "He was wearing earrings... and woman's lingerie," she said, pausing with an arched eyebrow for dramatic effect.

Some details in life, one would rather forget. I guess it's a bit of cognitive dissonance, so as not to be reminded of harsher truths. Like the fact that sadomasochism is still listed as a disorder (classified as a sexual paraphilia) in the DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a handbook for mental health professionals. I mean really, does it make any sense to group consensual power play alongside pedophilia? Granted, this is the same manual that listed homosexuality as a disorder up until the 80s.

Another little fact that I too often try to ignore - that our sexual freedoms in this country are quite limited, particularly for women involved in sex work. Look at what's happening in New York, where yet another house of domination was recently raided and shut down. A 21-year-old domina was arrested for prostitution for allegedly offering a prostrate massage for money. Don't vice cops have anything better to do than turn their masturbation fantasies into reality? I have nothing to say that hasn't been said before, but it does sicken me, how the entire pro BDSM scene in Manhattan is being terrorized by law enforcement.

Which brings me to my final point. Vote yes on Proposition K and take a stand for sexual freedom! From The San Francisco Chronicle : "Voting yes on Proposition K to decriminalize prostitution - to prohibit the city from arresting prostitutes - will make it easier for sex workers to report violence to the police and improve public health. The decriminalization of prostitution was the main recommendation of the citywide San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution more than 10 years ago. A recent UCSF study found that 1 out of 7 sex workers in San Francisco were threatened with arrest by police officers unless they had sex with them, and 1 out of 5 reported that police officers paid them for sex. Clearly, the policing of sex work is problematic."

New Zealand legalized prostitution in 2003, and you can see from this article that the level of discussion surrounding this issue is much more reasonable, with less moralizing and hypocrisy.

It's time to stop being complacent and complicit, living in fear and allowing others to smear us with labels of "criminal", "deviant" or "immoral." It's time to make positive change for justice, fairness and freedom. Take a stand!

Brain Tripping

2008-09-15T09:15:00.001-07:00

Don't believe everything you think. I saw that on a bumper sticker a few years ago and it really stuck with me. I was heavy into meditation at the time, experiencing that expansive state of being more than just my little self with its biases and blind spots. I was drawn to sit because of shoulder and neck pain which had turned chronic, finding that the meditation allowed me to relax my own resistance to the pain, thereby lessening it considerably. But the pain was still there. The remainder went away only after I realized that it was repressed anger and fear manifesting physically. Shining light on the real issues, the physical pain disappeared, it's job done. Amazing how our bodies never lie.

It's so good to be back in school. I love the feeling of engaging on so many levels, getting my head firing on all cylinders. Here's one concept that's intrigued me. Our brain does something called the summation of inputs. We process things both in parallel as well as heirarchically. Both within neurons and between them, sensory information is collected and collated. Every little bit of data is not sent to a central decision-making area. Rather, the different pieces are coalesced and merged. So at each level, new information is being created and then passed up to the next level. Our brains are like a corporation, with individuals compiling reports which are sent to their manager who then sends a report from his group to his manager and so on, the information edited to focus on priorities and discard the extraneous, until it reaches the final decision-maker. I like thinking of it this way, because it reinforces my skepticism about my own thinking. Sometimes vital information can get lost in the shuffle, ignored or prioritized incorrectly. We have been wired to believe our own thinking is infallible, our emotions tell us so, yet in many cases we need to re-check our premises.

I've heard of a study where they could detect the impulse which triggered a movement before our consciousness seemed to make the decision to move. Our awareness just seems to be in control, but perhaps is closer to a projection of the actual processing going on. It's like our avatar, a representation which we wholly identify as our self. Yet brain trauma can permanently change this personality (and drugs can temporarily alter it). Our personal predilections, tics and habits are based on the existing connections and biochemical balance which is us in this moment, yet ultimately maleable. If you've meditated for a long period, perhaps you've encountered a bigger you staring at yourself, timeless and not attached to that little persona.

I enjoy thinking of this form I inhabit as my avatar. Yes, the geek in me feels an affinity with the idea, made popular in the film 13th Floor and elucidated in a lecture I attended by Nick Bostrum, that we may be living in a computer simulation. Yet really what it does is help remind me not to overly identify with the happenstance of my creation, but rather to embrace my many blessings and continue to seek out enriching experiences in this world.

Talking Head or Porn Star?

2008-09-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

I was in the gym earlier today, tripping on how garishly made up the female anchors are on the cable news networks. These talking heads look like contract-girl porn stars. I admit I can have a hard time focusing on what they're saying. It must be a bitch for serious fellows they are interviewing to concentrate! Not that those channels ever seem to have much to say. Whenever I flip over to them, it always seems to be about a pretty woman missing from some small town in America. The only news channel that makes me feel sane is CNBC. I guess it just seems like less bullshit, focusing on the economy, even when I disagree with their pundits. Of course, the women on there are hot too. But in a more sophisticated and real way.

I was watching storm coverage on Fox last night and the mini-skirted blonde anchorwoman and brunette meteorologist in red seemed to be engaged in a little ego tussle as they debated the impact of the back-end of the hurricane which hit the Gulf Coast. They reminded me of the kind of girls who hang out at bars in the Marina, all smiling and giggling in front of the guys. But run into them in the ladies room, when the mask is off, and it's the silent treatment or eyes shooting daggers, then maybe later a well-placed heel to the foot or elbow to the ribs if they don't like the attention you're getting on the dancefloor.

Californication & Sex Addiction

2008-09-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

With the semester having started and me finally getting serious in my pursuit of a graduate degree, I've been a bit too distracted to write in my blog as of late. I do feel guilty when I don't write, yet I've learned to not to beat myself up too much. I've come to realize that whenever my writing gets more sparse, it usually means that I'm having my fair share of adventures and am fully engaged in my life. There's a trade-off between living deeply in the moment and stepping back to muse, analyze and create. I used to chide myself relentlessly for not applying myself more to my creative endeavors. That was before I began to appreciate that what really matters to me is savoring every moment of this wondrous, mysterious existence with which I have been gifted. Indeed, there is magic latent in the world, and I enjoy mining it.

In the end, everything else is dust in the wind to me. We drive ourselves to make our mark, our desire for fame and recognition a quixotic quest for immortality. We forget there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from our fear of the inevitable. Of course, there is more to achievement than just personal glory. There is the desire to share what we create and collaborate, to impart insight and publicly wrestle with the questions which nag us. So in a sense too, I feel a responsibility to my readers. Now I have been half-waiting to get those emails pleading with me to post something, as in "Please Mistress, your fans want to hear from you!" Somehow that always works like reverse-psychology and deters me even more. Ah well, I admit there's no winning with me sometimes.

I read the other day that David Duchovny checked himself in to rehab for sex addiction. I've been meaning to write about his new series "Californication," having caught the first season on disc. I really got into the first 6 or so episodes (the first of the 2 DVDs). It had witty dialogue, great acting, some heart-tugging drama and laugh-your-ass-off moments, and of course lots of T&A sex scenes. The story is about Hank Moody, a best-selling New York novelist with writer's block who lives in LA and drowns his sorrows (his longtime girlfriend/mother of his child's impending marriage to another man) by having sex with as many beautiful women as he can. The opening scene of the first episode has a nun going down on him (OK it's a dream sequence). There are more shockingly hilarious vignettes in the first few episodes, including a head-shakingly funny bedroom scene involving doggy-style sex and vomit, as well as a BDSM threesome gone awry with a hot Suicide Girl.

To paraphrase a few of the best lines from the show:

"What I want to know is why is this city so intent on destroying the female half of its population?" Hank Moody asks to himself, in response to all the plastic surgery and self-esteem issues he encounters in the women he sleeps with.

"Life is too short to dance with the fat chicks," his philandering dad tells him. Not PC but funny as hell (maybe because it is so un-pc).

The series winds down as you get into the second half of the first season though, with fewer sex scenes or hilarity, and more heart-heavy drama. This is when the chickens come home to roost. For underlying all the wicked sex is a very traditional, monogamous-based view of romantic relationships. Hank's original sin was that he never asked his girlfriend to marry him, so when someone finally did she said yes. His sexual compulsions cause him to be blackmailed and lose the faith of his daughter. We watch him suffer and do penance, reaping what he sowed. This is when I lost some of my interest in the show. These people were putting themselves and each other through hell, ostensibly in the name of love. They could see no other way. But I do. It's called polyamory. Hey, even Dr. Edel was talking about it on the radio today.

I wish David Duchovny well on his recovery. I bet he had the ladies throwing themselves at him extra-hard after "Californication" came out, what with all those inspiring sex scenes. I always thought he and his wife Tea Leoni looked like swinger types - they both are hot and seem like open-minded, intelligent people. I'm still formulating an opinion on sex as an addiction. Unquestionably, it can be a compulsion. Part of me wants to tell him "rehab is for quitters!" But seriously, sometimes things get a bit too extreme and we over-stimulate our reward centers, so moderation is key. It's just too bad that nowadays we can turn anything into a problem!

Sweet Sacrifice

2008-08-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

A hottie named Mortisha turned me on to this song and video. Enjoy!

Life's Little Adventures

2008-08-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

I love it when my sweet sexy friends turn me on to porn! A submissive girlfriend of mine sent me several titillating links to videos on YouPorn.com. Very nice. . .

I headed downtown yesterday to meet up with Ava Noir at the Four Seasons. We took our time grabbing a bite to eat and chatting in the lounge before heading up to the suite where her slave was being held captive, "forced" to watch porn until her return. We spanked him and treated him like a slut while he tried to impress us with Japanese phrases he'd learned on a recent trip to Tokyo, like "I have a big cock." We just laughed and Ava told him to be quiet as she wrapped him in a cellophane thong. It was good dirty fun, but we had to cut it short since Ava had a masseuse arriving shortly to give her a backrub in the room. We moved her slave to the closet and I said my good-byes, an extra spring in my step as I made my way through the lobby.

I was at a party over the weekend and got to talking to a friend of a friend. "Sorry if I was a little uptight when I arrived," I said after I'd loosened up with a few drinks, "There was this situation that I couldn't get out of my mind, but I feel so much better now."

"Are you talking about a client?" the woman asked. We were standing apart from the rest of the revelers and she spoke in a slightly hushed voice. I stood there looking at her, dumbfounded for a second, not wanting to blow my cover. I don't exactly advertise among my social circle that I'm a dominatrix. She looked around, then said "Nobody knows here. But you know I've done escorting, right?" I nodded as the memory of a previous liquor-soaked confession came into focus. She talked for several minutes about how the business messed with her head, how before she did it she felt more sexually bold and free but nowadays she gets uncomfortable when a guy begins to express an interest in her sexually, worrying that that's the only thing he sees in her. It sounded like she needed a transitional "let's just hug" relationship to help her heal. As the conversation winded down, she said, "Look if your situation needs a little extra oomph, I'd be down to double anytime." "Really?" I asked, half incredulous that after telling me her sob story, she was offering up her services. "Like tomorrow?" I said, knowing I wouldn't take her up on it. "Yeah, I could do tomorrow," she said, a little fire lighting up in the corner of her eyes. I could have shaken her, told her "Snap out of it! You just finished law school. You've gotta pass the bar. Move on!" But well, that's not my style. Ah who knows, some urges seem to need to run their course.

Between working at dotcoms and starting the pro domme gig, I had worked as the personal assistant to a wealthy Chinese businessman and nightclub owner. He was a maniac, my first day of work he was on the phone with a tabloid leaking information about his Hollywood celebrity father-in-law who he was in a legal battle with over his mother's estate. In his luxury apartment on top of Nob Hill, he'd smoke speed out of a broken lightbulb - during meetings with straight-laced business associates! I would arrive in the morning to find evidence of the previous night's debauchery, often including pictures of strippers I knew from the swinger scene who he paid to come home with him and party. I've fucked that girl in the ass with my strap-on, I'd think as I flipped through the images. The Filipino doormen downstairs always made snide litte remarks insinuating that I was his whore, which completely annoyed me. Of course, my tenure did end when this blonde Asian with fake tits started sleeping with my boss and doing his paperwork, rendering me obsolete. I knew she wouldn't last, but I said my sayonaras and hightailed it to my next adventure. . . and that would lead me to The Gates.

Coming from the Heart

2008-08-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am not someone who hangs out in the larger BDSM community. Instead, I have cultivated a few close friendships with others who also endeavor to approach this lifestyle from a place that is heart-centered and life-affirming. So it disappoints me when I hear stories of mistreatment from fellow players.

Of course, it may seem obvious to some that explorations of the darker side of the sexual psyche could lead to dysfunction. Yet I think it's such a cop-out to abuse the trust and vulnerability integral to this kind of play. It's all about the mind fuck. And as such, when compared to erotic exchanges that are based on a purely physical-sexual level, there's more room to get hurt and therefore a greater responsibility on the part of the participants, particularly the tops.

When I engage in power exchange, I am seeking to know myself better as well as connect in an authentic way with another being. Yet what I have seen is that these same rituals can be used as a substitute and barrier to intimacy. It can become a means of maintaining separation between oneself and the other. This other may be defined as client, male, caucasian, straight or vanilla person - whatever the label, it serves to dehumanize and distance, blocking true empathy.

I can see the defense mechanisms at play in this process, and recognize that many pro dommes protect themselves by creating these barriers, which they may regard as necessary boundaries. Yet disconnecting from those we choose to engage with only leads to our own emotional isolation. I have watched some move further and further away from mutual understanding with those who session with them, leading to bitterness as honest communication falls on the wayside.

What's troubling me most right now is to hear stories of how friends, who by no means fit into the alpha role within the dominant paradigm, have been subject to real cruelty and prejudice - in the lifestyle, as clients and as pros. These are people who already have to deal with judgments from society at large because of their race, size, age, physical ability and (trans)gender. What is it that makes people want to abuse those they perceive as defenseless? What joy does one get out of mistreating the less powerful? How heart-breaking to bare one's most precious secrets, only to have it thrown back in your face and made to feel wrong for being who you are, whether wanting to submit or top. What gets me is how some people act so proud of their "daring" alternative lifestyle, yet with their actions end up reinforcing conventional heirarchies and discrimination. I'm not talking about un-PC roleplays (which can be very hot), but about playing into the hands of close-mindedness and hatred.

When I top someone, I want to acknowledge their power. I want to pay respect to it by not assuming they're easy to conquer. I want to mentally and physically tussle until I have their submission. It makes the dynamic an earned rather than performed experience. That's the problem with so much pro play. It's thought of more as a performance than an encounter. So much of the good, juicy stuff gets lost in this illusion. And so much hurt can happen when playing mind games without heart.

Working the Kinks Out

2008-08-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine - let's call her Dara - was training to be an aesthetician and offered to give me a free facial. I happily obliged. As we chatted during the appointment, Dara told me she needed more practice with men's bikini waxing. Knowing what I do, a lightbulb went off in her head. "Wait a minute! You must have some guys I can work on," she said.

"Oh, I'm sure I could talk a few slaves into the idea," I said. "But do you really want to see my people?" I asked, conscious that while she was open-minded, my friend was quite the innocent.

"Just send them over. It'll be awesome!" she reassured me.

So I emailed a couple of my boys and encouraged them to set up appointments with Dara. Afterwards, I received giddy messages from both letting me know how much fun they had. One of my sissies even chatted about feminization with her. Dara also contacted me almost immediately afterward to thank me for the referrals, letting me know how sweet they both were. "Somehow I could tell they were your slaves," she giggled.

I hadn't realized how powerful and titillating it would be to send my submissives off to be worked on by a friend, that it would in some ways be an extension of the existing dynamic between us. I think it must have felt pretty liberating knowing that they could be themselves with a trusted friend of mine.

The very act of waxing is sadomasochistic in and of itself. I hadn't realized how much so until I had it done. Dara convinced me to return the following week for my first bikini wax ever. I wanted to find out how it feels to have your pubic hair ripped out by the roots. I was thrown off by how much it hurt, letting out a little scream until I learned to cover my own mouth. Even after the disturbingly hot wax was pulled off, she wasn't finished until the remaining stray hairs were plucked out with a tweezer. Wow.

It's funny when we can turn normally vanilla situations into a kinky fieldtrip! Of course, consensuality for any overt acts is important. But along these same lines, one of my tried and true sent me a note about his experience at the dentist's office:

The dentist and her assistant were making a couple of soft castings of my mouth and during that process poured warm molten silicone rubber into my mouth and then used a lot of force and TLC to get it out once it had cured. They must have thought I was crazy to be smiling during this very uncomfortable process, but I thought it very cool to be subjected to this. Of course I didn't tell them that I'm quite used to having intelligent, beautiful women forcing silicone rubber products in and out of my mouth with semi-regularity.

Since winding down from the pro scene, how I go about my days could aptly be described as "lifestyle" kinky. Meaning that situations have become more free-flowing, less restricted to the dungeon and more integrated into my everyday life. Admittedly, I've always hated the word "lifestyle" and how it was used in a snobby sort of way to distinguish oneself as better than more commercially-oriented dommes. I've been fortunate in that I was not raised to buy into convention, so my lifestyle has never really been vanilla. And I've bristled at how alternative culture can simply replace one type of uniform and stereotyped thinking with another. But I suppose "lifestyle" can, at times, be a useful delineator.

Whatever you call this hybrid existence, I am enjoying not having to adhere to any industry standard, protocol, peer pressure and the like. I am enjoying not stepping outside myself to critique my performance in anticipation of a review, or otherwise getting bogged down in the hustle of it all.

I am revelling in connecting with my wants, not my shoulds. I am playing with people I deeply care about, trust and respect. Surprising and delighting myself with each discovery, I am unearthing new dimensions to myself, tapping into novel avenues of exploration and cultivation of my personal power. Working the kinks out is a very good thing...

Know Thyself

2008-08-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

Know thyself. We are all familiar with the dictum. Yet I've come to see how difficult it is to maintain clarity in relationships closest to oneself. In particular, I am struck by our seeming inability to perceive clearly in three key relationships: with our individual selves, with our significant others, and with our family. There just seems to be too much attachment in these situations, leading to a sort of funhouse mirror effect on our ability to reflect back a shared reality.

I first started noticing a pattern to these blindspots in people during my observations of other women in erotic work. Most of us seem to need to put blinders on of one sort or another to justify ourselves, likely due to the lack of support in society as a whole for what we do. "What's up with her? I just don't get her. I feel like she's not really there," I was telling a mutual friend of a new girl at The Gates, back in the days when I worked there. I prided myself on being able to figure out what made everyone tick and act accordingly, but this woman remained a cypher to me, especially after an awkward double session together.

"You know, I thought about this a lot," my friend said, "It's weird because she can be really insightful when helping me sort out stuff going on in my life, but she can't make sense of her own predicaments. One time she thanked me for giving her great advice and I told her I just thought of what she would say to me under the same circumstances. There's this blurriness there when it comes to trying to understand herself, especially her self image in relation to men." She was not alone.

There was a woman who interviewed with me to be an apprentice dominatrix. A pretty young Eurasian just out of college, she had been stripping for the past five years and wanted to try something different. I was taken aback by how sweet and innocent this woman seemed to be, and as I talked to her I learned that it really wasn't an act. "Just so you know, this work is not about explicit sexuality. I have friends who escort, but this is not what it is," I said to her.

"Oh my God! I would never be friends with someone who does that!" she wrinkled her cute little nose in disdain. We ended our lunch on friendly terms, but she didn't follow up (she seemed disappointed when we talked about the money involved in session work). I ran into her a few weeks later at a swinger-themed dance party that was being thrown in one of the City's strip clubs. "See that older woman over there," she pointed to the stage where a hot Sandra Romain look-alike writhed topless, grinding against another woman. I appreciatively took in her olive skin and porn star rack, as well as the lusty sneer on her sultry face. "She tried to hit on me the last time I was here, but I think she's a prostitute." My stripper acquaintance said this last word with a snarl, almost like she should spit afterwards to get the bad taste out of her mouth. Later on, I saw her lap-dancing her date in a secluded area. It puzzled me, this strange mix of overt sexuality and prudishness, yet I would come to see it time and time again (even in myself!). It's like we tell ourselves that we're still good girls even though we do this and this, but if we do that - that awful thing! - then we are a bad girl and shame shame shame! My goodness, it's kind of ridiculous isn't it?

This inability to see things clearly when they hit closest to home marks our relationships with our family and significant others as well. I've read that there is a "primitive" society where children are never raised by their biological parents, but by their aunt and uncle instead. They believe the parents and children will have a better relationship for it, and that the aunt and uncle will not have the same attachments (i.e. over-identification) which can get in the way of nurturing independence and autonomy in the child.

"I told him you tell him that. He won't listen if it comes from me," a woman was telling me how she got her husband to take some much-needed advice by having a friend do it for her. The interdependence of our egos and the delicate balance of power in our relationships with significant others can sometimes call for such diplomacy. And the spelling out of overidentification in the form of traditional marriage (e.g. the woman changes her name to the man's name) makes seeing clearly that much more difficult, as spouses begin to think of one another as each other's possessions. I've always marvelled at how men I've met through my professional play seem delighted to hear of my latest exploits, and I've heard the same from other women in the work. There is this pure joyfulness in hearing of our pleasures, no attempts to control or restrain. So different from how most of us approach our "real" relationships. But of course, it doesn't have to be that way. Many of us are exploring new ways of being together through polyamory aka (but not necessarily the same thing as) swinging - I have many thoughts on this topic, deserving of its own post later. Have a great weekend!

Knowing and Mystery

2008-07-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

I headed out to the redwoods last week, practiced a little mountain biking skills on some trails. I always enjoy learning new things. It's like being a virgin again. There is a balance at play, between forging on with what is established and breaking new ground. Sometimes we get stuck in a rut, other times we're too busy chasing novelty. But when we get it right, we're firing on all cylinders, making the most of what we know and what we are still discovering.

I am always wanting to know. To break through the mysteries. Well, at least I've figured out enough by now to realize that there is no holy grail, no answer to be found on this plane about why we are really here and what is the meaning of my life. So I am learning to enjoy not knowing. The mysteriousness which has worked to compell seekers to me -- the faceless Mistress with her provocative words and images -- is the same quality which I now embrace in myself. In those moments when we are stripped down of our preconceptions and projections, when neither our book knowledge or street smarts can point the way, when we are laid bare-naked in our beingness, illusion falling away to pure energy contained in these walls of flesh and bone... that is when I feel closest to the divine. It can happen in the most unlikely of circumstances, and usually does.

I had endeavored for a month or so to write an account of my pro domme experiences. I decided that it's too early. I am still processing it and do not yet have the benefit of hindsight. One of my friends has told me how much she appreciates that I can completely change my opinion on a subject. And I do believe our fervant insistence on consistency is a plague on our ability to think creatively and explore critically. Yet for a published work, I want to have a certain degree of stability in my philosophy. Years later, I don't want to have to disavow its point of view, prematurely drawn and hastily concluded.

The effort also underscored another push-pull relationship: between looking inwardly to create and looking outwardly to learn. Like I think about how, instead of waiting patiently as my snake tried to break the seal of its old skin during a molt, I sat down on the computer to write about it, thus missing the actual event. That's not what I want, to be holed up away from the living, breathing world as I get lost in the mirror of my own thoughts. It isn't time for that yet.

I've also come to realize how important it is that my writing be about sharing my insights and elucidating my understanding of the world as a kinky, polyamorous woman trying to live out her truth in this age of wall-to-wall vanilla sexuality and monogamy for show. I don't want to be just another person climbing on top of a mountain shouting "Look at me! Pay attention to me!" If I wanted that, I could join a reality show. No, I want to highlight my journey and help guide others who feel lost in this wasteland of both suffocating restrictions and out-of-control mores.

We all hold up our sacred cows. I used to think to be an acclaimed writer would be such a big deal. Yet like everything, it is what it is and no magic pill. I have come to realize that I have a unique perspective afforded by my knowledge and experience in the areas of the modern spiritual movement (that is, the one aligned with meditation, self-awareness and traditionally Buddhist ideas), the cutting edge of technology and philosophy (accelerating change and the singularity, Craig Venter) and sexual freedom and other pleasures (BDSM, sex work, polyamory, club culture), all with the skeptical eye of a born-outsider rooted in the testy soil of Hollywood and nourished in the sensitive hands of San Francisco.

I want to share what I know, while giving myself room to stay out there and learn from the greatest teacher there is - my own direct experience. I believe we are each a learning organ of the universe, and that the knowledge we possess contributes to the evolution of a shared consciousness. And oh how much fun we can have in the process - amen to that!

Simple Pleasures

2008-07-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

I took in the warm weather and good music on the bay this weekend at one of the summer day parties which I look forward to every year. I wore a batik sundress that flowed against my body's curves and let the sun's rays heat my skin, and couldn't help but feel appreciated by all the compliments I received.

Club culture is really my natural playground. From extended family celebrations in childhood to my kiddie raver days to the more sophisticated gatherings of the present - dancing, chatting and lounging with a community of like-minded souls has always been a part of my life. When I was deeply involved (read: obsessed) with my pro domme career, I let a lot of that fall away. The rush of taking on this role of "dominant on demand" temporarily replaced my other outlets for connection. I guess we all get caught up at times. Now I feel like I'm finding myself again.

I've been having fun playing the femme in pretty dresses spiced up with touches of my own unique style. There is something so innocent about taking in the sweet admiration of those moved by my appearance, without that undercurrent of an ulterior motive that comes with being more than just an amateur at seduction. I revel in the simple pleasure of flirtatious compliments from strangers in polite society, the rush of mutual attraction from furtive glances and nuanced body language, the victory of achieving an intriguing sartorial balance of self-expression and the fashion zeitgeist. When I consider what to wear for an event, I allow my mood to guide me, delighting in all the clever little ways we can convey our feelings in our dress. Slight shifts in fabric choice, cut, color and accessories can make a huge difference in messaging, changing the tone from assertive, to exotic, to sleek.

I'm fortunate that in my daily life, I am constantly reminded that I am blessed. Perhaps for some who turn pro, it's an opportunity to feel special. Yet for me, trying to fit into that commercial role squeezed out some of the complexity and artistry of my self-expression, dumbing down my assets for the masses. As I evolve into my next incarnation, I feel myself relaxing back into my natural confidence, wiping away the memory of having my body and face graded on a scale of 1-10 like an everyday product for consumption. When men pay, they are much more scrutinizing and critical. This is the ugly side of turning your womenly charms into a money-making enterprise. At a party, I only hear the good stuff. But when you put yourself out there on the market, you hear the bad stuff too.

Men don't really get how sensitive women can be to this process of evaluation because they haven't been trained their whole lives that their value is intrinsically tied to their physical attractiveness - I suspect most men would have an easier time than most women giving a number rating to their appearance. We are taught that it's ok to poke fun at a man's bald spot or paunch, but that it is extremely rude to do the same with any part of a woman's appearance. We are not allowed to laugh at women's exterior, maybe that's why there are so few ladies in comedy. Women are trained to have a hair-trigger sensitivity to criticism about their appearance, and that certainly doesn't engender a good sense of humor.

So perhaps the trial by fire that women in the entertainment industry are put through is good for them, facing that achilles heel of our fixation on beauty. That may be so, but I have to say I am enjoying my newfound freedom away from the harsh glare of the professional arena. There is both a heightened subtlety and refinement in real-life encounters, as well as an unpredictability and rawness from the unscripted, and the extra leverage to be had as a lifestyle pleasure-seeker. I'm too spoiled by my real life to have stayed a strictly session-based Mistress, which in the end could only satisfy on one level. It feels like I'm melting back into my true role as a radiantly multi-dimensional, intellectually inquisitive, creatively driven woman of the world - and that much wiser for my experience in the trenches.

I am diving back into a regular meditation, yoga and non-violent communication practice, as I am wanting to fully process and understand the roller coaster ride of these past few years. I am giving myself time to step back and see the bigger picture, placing my journey as a pro domme in the greater context of my life as a polyamorous, spiritual adventurer, integrating the positives and shaking off the rest, and endeavoring to come to a meaningful exploration and assessment of it all.

My World

2008-07-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

I got a call the other day from one of my submissives, someone who has known me for several years now. He was on his way to buy a massage table to keep in his house for me. It made my day to know I have such dedicated attendants in my life. Although he has been devoted to me from the beginning of my pro domme days, I only recently allowed him to serve me again in scene, our dynamic's temporary demise the unfortunate side effect of an accidental acid trip. Oh yes, I do have some good stories...

I was lounging in the park with another of my dear submissives, and we mused about how life is sometimes like a BDSM sitcom. During one of our first play dates, I pulled down his pants to find the word "owned" carved on his ass! He had nervously told me beforehand how a recent scene with a friend went too far, and I knew he was worried about my reaction as I examined him. Not really knowing him at the time, I half wondered if this was some bizarre test to see if I'd freak out. In the end, I had a good laugh teasing him about it.

I've been enjoying sharing a nice meal with my submissives. People used to bug me for this, wanting to make a potential session contingent upon going out to dinner. I always refused, sensing that these strangers were more interested in "flexing their muscles," acting romantic (gag), or reinforcing the conventional paradigm as the waitstaff automatically deferred to them, the male in the party. No, it had to come from me, with my tried and true only. It was quite hilarious to watch one of my minions hem and haw when asked to make a decision. "I don't know. You're the expert, you work here. Why don't you decide?" he said to the waitress. It made me realize how much fun can be had at a restaurant, subtly training the waitstaff to direct their attention to me by having my submissive say things like "She's the boss, I'm just here for the ride."

It feels really good to step out of the professional limelight and sit back, enjoying the beautiful relationships I've developed with my chosen few on a much more lifestyle level. It's liberating to be able to take my sissy to the mall, a TENS unit secretly strapped to his privates, while we peruse the latest Victoria's Secret fashions for him. The sales lady doesn't even blink, assuming the 34Bs she's ringing up are for me.

I had thought I would still allow the occasional pro session with former non-regular clients who've seen me before at The Gates. But after one of them recently posted an unauthorized review, I've concluded that a few bad eggs make this an untenable option. I believe that even the most glowing of reviews, done without my permission, is an invasion of my privacy and a signal that the writer of said review does not truly believe or respect my position as a dominant.

When they can jabber on about what an enchanted goddess/all-powerful mistress/blah blah blah to my face and then write about me as a "provider of services" behind my back - I just don't understand some people. It seems like this last reviewer wanted to contradict the announcement of the closing of my stable, letting the guys know that not only am I still an object for public consumption, but that you don't even have to call me "Mistress." Oh really! Isn't it enough to have the privilege of a private meeting with me, why do you have to go write about it on the equivalent of a men's bathroom wall? And then they wonder how I figure out it's them, when I send them the letter of their banishment, letting them know that they have irreparably damaged the trust between us.

I ran into two lovely ladies of The Gates recently at a social event. One lamented to me how hard it was for her to take the reviews. "I remember you said I should never read them," she said, "But when I read them, it's like I see the real power dynamic. I realize I don't really have the power, even though I think of myself as the dominant one."

"No, that's just bitches getting their revenge," I tell her, "They're uncomfortable with their own submission, so they have to re-tool it after the fact as them being served by you. It is one perspective, but not the perspective. Yours is as valid as theirs. Don't buy into it."

Afterwards, I follow up with an email letting her know many esteemed artists, including a highly regarded director, no longer listen to what the critics say about them. They know holding onto the integrity of their vision is key to their being able to continue with their work.

I write to her: "Keep your vision of what you do, don't let a few online trolls taint it for you. The truth as much as anything is that you are using them for your satisfaction and gain. Don't let them pull you into their world, unless you consciously have decided you want to know. And who says just because knowledge is available we should know it. Do you need to see grisly pictures of a crime? It happened. It's true and real. But you are better off without being traumatized by that particular truth. As long as nothing overtly incorrect is being stated (eg more sensual than you get) leave it for them. It wasn't meant for your eyes anyway. I can even have my sub read any new reviews you get on the three main sites and vet them for you - just let me know."

Don't let them oppress you with their words. You will be able to hang in there longer, if you don't expose yourself to it. Take back the power and remember why you love this so much! As for me, I have no regrets, but am relieved to no longer give a shit. I have insulated myself well, surrounding myself with great people who share the same values of authenticity, intelligence, creativity, honesty, caring and discretion. Though I know I can never stop other people from doing what they do, I am content to wash my hands of it and move on. The volatile events of seven years past pushed me to embark on my pro domme adventure, knowing that we must celebrate our lives today in this very moment. And that same drive keeps pushing me further. Carpe diem baby!

On Driving (and monkeys)

2008-07-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." I am thinking about the opening line in Less Than Zero, that seminal novel for me and so many other kids growing up in LA in the 80s, as I drive away from San Francisco. I am in the lane to the right of the fast lane, musing on how I like this lane better because there is less pressure to put the petal to the metal if someone is trying to ride up your ass. I figure the speed freaks behind me can jump over to the fast lane, which is wide open anyway.

Of course, I look in the rearview mirror and see someone is breathing down my neck. It just amazes me how many people seem to lack basic knowledge of physics - that for every doubling of speed, you are going to need four times the distance to stop (given the same amount of time). It never fails to disturb me when I find that people I know and consider to be thoughtful and considerate are actually terrors on the road: tailgating, cutting off cars, getting into a hissy fit over other drivers. I get the sense that the way we drive is a good glimpse into our inner selves. Sadly, it's often not a pretty picture. Coasting down a hill, letting the momentum take me, all around me cars are lurching and braking, using up all that precious gas. That jittery, greedy mind which stutters, hiccups and howls, always wanting more, more, more...until we suck this planet dry.

So this car is still tailgating me. Why doesn't it just pull into the fast lane? It finally does. I am keeping pace with the car in front of me and we have a respectable distance between us. Despite the fact that the fast lane is wide open in front of and behind him, the car now jumps in front of me. Maybe he (or she) gets nervous being alone in the fast lane, who knows? I laugh as he starts in on car that'd been ahead of me. Eventually, he gives up his pressure tactic and switches back over to the fast lane.

Taking this little incident further in my mind, I wondered what if this driver didn't wise up and change into the faster lane? What if he just kept accelerating dangerously close to the car ahead of him? The other driver could do nothing different, satisfied in the knowledge that if anything happened, it'd be this fool's fault. But for safety's sake, the other driver would likely change into a slower lane to avoid a mishap.

Our cars are lethal weapons, so staying the course when another driver is being overly aggressive is basically stepping up for a duel. Yet many of us would not back off. We've been taught that to do so is to be a coward. That the courageous thing to do is defend your righteousness and not back down. But is that really courage - to act suicidally, even homicidally, to make your point? Well when you put it that way Mistress, of course not! But our relationship with cars is strange because the rules of engagement we use on the road can often seem less rationale and more pushy than how we are face-to-face. There's a strong ego-involvement with our cars: with the way they look, with the way we drive them, and the way we react to other drivers and their cars. It's like how it's so much easier to flame people online rather than insult them to their face, we have that extra layer insulating us. Obviously, with cars this is a false sense of security.

In the western world, more people die in car accidents than anything else. Yet we fear and take measures against the abstract and the rare, not the everyday. When we drive, the first thing on our mind should be protection of ourself and others. What this means for a lot of people is protection not of their body but of their ego. Look at how we project our egos onto our vehicles. We merge our identities with them so completely, we say things like "Look at that car! Did you see what he did? He's crazy!" It's really quite extraordinary how we talk about the car and the driver as if they were one and the same.

People often like to criticize modern society for being too herd-like. But when I drive, I see how uncooperative we can be as a herd! Does that sports car zipping across lanes think he's exercising his individuality by threatening all our lives? Or how about that SUV driver with the glaring headlights, isn't she just affirming her right to be seen and recognized? It's absurd how we get it all mixed up, asserting our desire for individuality when safety should be first, yet moving with the herd on such personal issues as sexuality. Sometimes I wonder how we can be so bone-headed.

I am reminded of animal behavior I studied in my zoology class. In some ways, we are not so different. We are creatures like the rest, constantly jostling for position in the social heirarchy, staking out our territory and seeking to make ourselves attractive to potential mates, just as our fellow earthly brethren do. It's given me a better perspective on people and helped me to not take negative interactions so personally, to realize that a lot of what the average person does is motivated by these endless games, hardwired into us. It's funny how we often overlay logic and reason on our decisions after the fact, to justify actions which may have had more instinctive origins.

We have much to learn about ourselves. Perhaps as we evolve, we can align ourselves more with the peaceful, sex-loving, female-empowered bonobo monkeys and less with the violent, male-dominated, rigidly heirarchical chimpanzees. Out of our two closest primate relatives, I'm betting the bonobos are the better drivers.

Euphoric, Inquisitive, At Ease...

2008-07-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Euphoric, inquisitive, at ease... I am feeling all these things at the moment. Euphoric because I'm having fun again with my play. Inquisitive to see what new directions my latest adventures take me. At ease with this period of flux and change, yet focused on continuing my learning and growing to better myself as a person.

I went through this period of bitterness about my pro domme work, which infected all my erotic interactions. Perhaps a necessary come-down from such a long time of flying high with it. I had to step back and extricate the things that really were a part of me from the things I took on in playing that role. To even say that it was a role would have been heresy to me just a short while ago, I had I merged my identity so completely with being Mistress Xia, I believed my own propaganda.

It's taken me a while to find myself again. I am slowly teasing out the real from the artifice; the genuine from the mere performance; the "shoulds" embodied in industry standards and protocol with the "wants" of my heart's desire. Learning is such a fascinating process. We set out to know, but since we do not yet know, what we are looking for cannot be preordained. Rather, if we allow ourselves to let go into unknowingness, the truth unfolds before us like a mystery unveiled. In the end, we often end up in a completely different place than we imagined. That's part of the magic of life.

I feel liberated now that I am playing by my own rules, making them up along the way. It's so much easier for me now, away from the glare of the public eye that is cast upon actively practicing pro dommes. The reviews, ads, new inquiries, gossip - I am glad to be done with it, even if it doesn't always seem to be done with me!

I recently refused someone who has served me in session before. In his previous email to me he had included a link to an escort and asked if I could be a reference for him. I told him I thought it inappropriate and distasteful that he would presume to introduce me to this aspect of his sex life, lumping all of us "providers" in the same boat. I know I wouldn't be comfortable having him serve me again. Maybe I'm a bitch and a hypocrite, but that's how I feel. And what is this about anyway, if not my feelings as a Mistress? Is it wrong that I want to feel special? That I want my slaves to act as they would with a proper lady, waiting for any permission I may give before bringing it down to a more casual/crude tone rather than assuming that I am all right with such things? I ask because even I don't know. It's a curious process, trying to figure out all this uncharted territory...

What I do know is that right now, I am having fun again. The little censor in my head which used to monitor my "performance" to make sure I was acting "dominant enough" is creeping away, no longer needed because the people with me aren't there with some ulterior motive to suss me out as a pretender. It's amazing to truly relax into my role, knowing that we are all comfortable with the flow of the power dynamic and not fixated on the "right" and "wrong" way to play. I fell into the trap of buying into that spirit-defeating game of trying to please the peanut gallery, rather than staying true to myself. Thank the Goddess within that I have come to my senses. Sweet times ahead!

"Battlestar Galactica" Satisfies. "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" Tantalizes

2008-06-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

I just got caught up to the latest Battlestar Galactica. Wow! There is something about watching these ongoing, epic science fiction dramas (Babylon Five also comes to mind, though BSG is my fav) that can be so rewarding when they finally start to wrap things up. As a viewer, you've literally invested years following these characters and stories, cheering the daring, insightful plot developments along the way. With too many shows, I've had my hopes dashed as storylines veered off track from boldness, intelligence and originality to implausible or predictably neutered fare. Perhaps because BSG never drew the huge audiences of other shows, it has been allowed to stay true to its vision. Sci fi dramas like BSG allow us to thoughtfully explore the dangerous territories of us versus them politics and religion without all the baggage that comes from seeing it in "real-life" terms.

I caught a trailer for Showtime's Secret Diary of a Call Girl. It's interesting to note that while networks in the U.S. typically make homegrown versions of successful foreign shows, this one is simply the re-packaged original from the U.K. The cynic in me knows that lines like "Escort, hooker, prostitute, or whore, I don't care what you call me, that's just semantics" delivered with a smooth, upper-class British accent goes down a lot easier with Stateside audiences, somehow sounding more sophisticated than if those same words were pronounced with the more jarring tones of an American. I have yet to watch the series, but I will likely give you my two cents after I do.

Vibrators, Geeky Science & Saying Yes to Creativity

2008-06-17T17:01:00.003-07:00

Last night just before midnight on cable, I saw a commercial the likes of which I have never seen before. It was for the Trojan Vibrating Touch Fingertip Massager. The ad had everyday-looking women, older and younger, advising each other on the wonders of the product. We've come a long way to "Sex in the City" marketing baby!

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Science geek alert: check out the Nova on Epigenetics. If DNA is the hardware, this is the software. Epigenetics explains how genetically identical organisms can have different physiologies (eg how one twin develops autism but the other doesn't) and how environmental influences such as pesticides and smoking can permanently alter our bloodlines for 3 or more generations. Whether your grandfather was well-fed or close to starving during his late childhood may determine your susceptability to certain diseases and even your lifespan. If we're anything like rats, whether or not you were nurtured well as a baby can determine how often and what amount of stress hormones your body releases. These switchs are determined at different times depending on gender. The "sensitivity period" for females is in the womb, for males in late childhood (perhaps evidence that females truly are most sensitive!). This is a huge step in our understanding of the complexity of life and evolution, one that's already helping fight cancer. Pretty amazing stuff.

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Shortly after I started this blog in '03, I had a conversation with someone who questioned me as to why I was blogging. "If everyone writes a blog, then who's going to read them all?" he wondered. He seemed perplexed by the outpouring of expression by the masses. I think it made him nervous, upsetting the status quo where there are the people who perform and then there's the rest of us who sit back passively consuming, politely clapping afterwards. Perhaps it unsettled him to know that technology is quickly closing the gap between artist and audience, and that there'll be fewer and fewer excuses for not participating. In many so-called primitive cultures, things like story-telling, singing, dancing, playing instruments and making sculptures are activities not limited to an elite, but are done by everyone to bring people together. So many of us have our own snippets of truth and beauty to share. Our fast-progressing world is making it easier for like-minded souls to connect. Yes, the lowest-common denominator mega-audience is for the most part gone. And I say good riddance.

Being There

2008-06-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

Over the course of multitudes of conversations with seekers of professional domination, I have gleened more times than I would like to admit a chasm separating my own mentalité from that of my prospective submissive. Part of this gap may be attributed to the parallel but not always overlapping points of view typically embodied in the male and female minds.

Beyond that, the source of the disconnect seems to come from a lack of critical thinking and presence in the moment. Projections, assumptions, stereotypes - they all come from lazy, pre-packaged thinking, which in turn is indicative of a lack of awareness of what's right in front of you. Lost daydreaming up our latest fantasies in our heads, we fail to see the human being in the room with us.

I get the feeling some prefer it that way. For whatever reason - be it shame, fear or disdain - some people do not want to really lay their cards down on the table, let you in their heads and truly engage. In my experience, it has been the most frustrating and ultimately dispiriting to walk through a scene with someone who really doesn't see me. I'd rather have someone insult me with a sexual request than act like I'm some Mistress fill-in-the-blank automaton, just going through the motions. This is not mindless manual labor. This is a craft inspired by heart and soul!

Folks like this will be better off when virtual reality is good enough to fool their brains into thinking avatars are real people. Unfortunately in the meantime, they will continue to torment dominatrixes who are interested in exploring authentic human connection.

I reconciled myself to these disconnects with the following compromise: if they cannot truly understand me, then at least they can worship me. And I don't just mean the euphemism of worship=getting sensual, but the concept of worship in a grander sense.

Of course, the Mistress is supposed to love the idea of being worshipped. We each reflect the sacred to one extent or another, and as such there is a god or goddess within us all. I have this lofty perspective now. Though I confess that when I got my start, I craved worship purely as a form of ego-buffing. All that fawning can get to your head. I did get a wake-up call early on during a double session, when I heard a submissive say all the same things he said to me to another domme, who was completely different from me in almost every way. That's when I realized so much of what comes out of both the sub and the domme's mouth are these canned sayings.

It's fascinating to watch others go through the same process. I enjoy seeing the excitement of initial discovery that comes from training a woman with latent dominant powers. I remember watching my apprentice H admiring herself in the mirror during a scene, and I knew she was thinking the same things I used to think of: how hot she looked in her fetish outfit, how much of a badass she was strutting her stuff, how fiercely and beautifully she ruled over these men.

It's funny how things change. Now when someone describes me as this all-powerful, exquisite goddess of supreme powers, I roll my eyes. It's cute. That stuff no longer does it for me. It kind of bores me now. But I'm glad because that means I no longer need that kind of puffing up. I'm too busy working on other things.

Another aspect to being a Mistress which usually goes unquestioned is the idea of having followers. Sometimes I'll take a critical point of view in this blog and I'll get an email vociferously agreeing with me while at the same time attacking the target of my critique to a point far beyond my own objections. It's a bit frightening to see how the game of telephone works on a psychological level. I suppose that's how we got zealotry in the first place!

I sometimes think some women and men like to take on the submissive role because they don't want to have to do the hard thinking. Maybe they know they're not that good at it. And I guess that's OK. Still, it's slightly unnerving when I feel like people are swallowing my words whole rather than doing their own chewing and digesting. I assume in my readers an understanding that underlying everything I write is the subtext: think for yourself. We each need to analyze opinions within the context of our own unique lives. In terms of self-awareness, there can be no Mistress to do the job for you. We must each be our own master and commander.

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I'm so taken with Manhattan. Right now, I am resonating with the no-bullshit, let's get work done attitude, the joie de vivre and the prickly heart. It's like LA but with culture and intelligence. LOL did I just write that??

I am contemplating staying out there for a month or so next summer. Never say never! You may recall me declaring as much in an earlier post regarding my retirement. I'm mulling it over at the moment, and am seriously considering taking sessions when I am in New York.

I've been in San Francisco for 12 years now. I've traveled quite a bit during my time here, though I've only left for an extended period once when I studied spanish in Costa Rica for 3 months. I am feeling the travel bug biting deeper into me again, especially the pull towards big, hi-tech megapolises. A short trip to Tokyo is in the works as well.

We'll see...

Impressions of New York

2008-06-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a week in Manhattan, my second trip in two years. I am loving that city! We happened to arrive during a heat wave, with temperatures in the 90s and higher. I was pleasantly surprised at how un-muggy it was, despite the heat. And all the pretty ladies in beautiful, sexy sundresses - now that was a sight to behold. It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway!) that New York is the most stylish and stylistically brave city in America. My issue with so many places is feeling like I'm drawing more attention than desired by the clothes I want to wear. Not every woman is asking for a virtual target sign by the fashion she dons. Sometimes she just wants to feel free to fully express her vision of herself. In New York, I felt that freedom.

Multi-ethnic groups of friends and couples were a much more common sight in New York. This also surprised me, as I had always thought of California as being on the forefront of racial harmony. But I saw many more mixed groups and couples hanging out - both young and old - to the point where it no longer seemed novel. Perhaps it's simply the greater number of people you can observe in that vast city. Yet my initial impression of it as a novelty seemed to reinforce its relative rarity on this coast. I guess they've had more time to work on that over there.

Contemporary New Yorkers defy the old stereotype of being unfriendly. One of my friends says it's because of 9/11, that after getting your teeth knocked out, it changes your perspective. Whatever the reason, my friendly encounters outnumbered the rude ones by at least 10 to 1. And not just friendly but helpful and actually watching out for you. I would say it's one of the most neighborly big cities I've had the privilege of visiting.

The only place that underwhelmed me during my visit was the local Hustler strip club. That being said, I was there on a Sunday night, which is supposed to be slow, and the blond Russians who worked the tables were just not my type. I'm sure on a future trip I can find a strip club to suit my tastes, though the Bay Area definitely seems to be the center for hapa hotties.

I checked out Brooklyn as well, since I have heard it compared to the Mission in San Francisco, which I call home. We took the subway to Park Slope, which I believe was Heath Ledger's neighborhood. I'd say that area is more like Noe Valley, with all the strollers and kids. But I'm glad I ventured over there, as it reinforced for me why places in Manhattan are so in-demand. I'm going to do a bit of research and figure out a way to stay there for a month or so next summer. New York has not seen the last of me!

Gotta Love 'Em

2008-06-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

Chatting with a fellow former dominatrix the other day, the playboy bunny reality show "The Girls Next Door" came up. "I'm just not sure about the show. Do you ever watch it?" she asked me.

I told her just in passing, as I didn't consider them "my people," but I pointed out that the show does put a spotlight on polyamory and sex workers, so it can't be all that bad!

I am a sucker for smart, confident, stylish, pretty and fierce women. My latest fascination is with punk pop princess Avril Lavigne, with her brooding stare, her bitch bratty attitude and her lack of giggly, girlish sexiness which is so everywhere. I think we'll be seeing more interesting transformations from her.

I joined in a Flash Dance street party the other day. These are part of the smart mob phenomenom, where emails and other forms of instant communication announce an impromptu event. We danced for 2 hours on Church and Market, with a booming bicycle-driven sound system and a flurry of friendly hipsters. Fun!

I'll be heading to New York until mid-June.

Live, lust, laugh and learn!

New Skin

2008-05-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

I watch my kingsnake rubbing its head against the grain of rough wood. It pushes its nose so hard against the surface, I can see its whole head shaking from the effort. It pushes again, and I see the muscles of its throat swallowing with the exertion. It's trying to break open its own too-tight, dull gray skin. Underneath, bright orange, black and cream scales are waiting.

I walk away to write this down. When I come back I see that it is done. The snake is tail to tail with its old inside-out coat, just about to pull apart from it after peeling it off its body. I make a mental note to stay put next time. I line up the shed skin next to a ruler, counting 27 inches.

I'm going to bring my snake in for a check-up, since it's been a couple years now that I've had him - or her. I'm also going to get it sexed, though it doesn't really matter to me. Friends bugged me to name it. I resisted, saying it would only be for our benefit and mean nothing to the animal. But as a joke I named it Psst, so that's what my friends call it.

#

I lost my second iphone. Why can't they be smaller and less expensive? I was going to give up on them, but then a friend gifted me with the money for a new one. It was karma that took them away from me. Both times, gone in a fit of anger. It's only a phone, but it could be something a lot more precious. I hope one day I learn the lesson.

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I'm starting to wear dresses. For the first time in my life really. Jaded party people who've known me for years drop their jaws in amazement, never having seen me before like this. It's nice to know I can still pull off a new look. I like how easy it is to make an impression with my short hair and long, curvy dresses amidst a sea of long hair and pants.

Last time I had short hair, 7 years ago, it seemed like more women in pop culture were sporting the look: Madonna, Demi Moore, Linda Evangelista, to name a few. Remember Angelina Jolie in Hackers? Nowadays, everyone is going for the endless tresses. I think Victoria's Secret has got all the models vying to look ultra femme, though I miss that sleek, pulled-back look that Ms. Evangelista always wore so well.

I sometimes dismiss surface changes. Yet everything is connected, and it feels good to have these changes within be reflected on the outside as well.

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Someone said I am trying something different with my blog. I guess I am. I no longer desire to be worshipped, simply heard. Somehow, the latter seems more incendiary. Yes, I am working on a longer-form piece. But let's not discount blogging. I think one day it will be recognized as a vehicle of expression as artistically legitimate as the rest.

Why am I still putting up pictures when I am no longer seeking sessions? Well, to that I would ask does everything have to be about the commercial? I feel more free to publish the results of my creative collaborations, now that I have more distance from my audience.

I am still kinky, though I know I post about it less. This blog is about me and whatever I feel like writing about, now more so than ever. And the best reply to that is a "Yes Mistress!"

Badass Chanteuses

2008-05-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

In my procrastinating for my very last final, I got caught up on a bit of pop culture and watched some recent videos from mainstream female pop artists. Two vids that stood out for me were Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" and her duet with badass Shakira "Beautiful Liar." Now I'm feeling their femme power sisterhood - fierce, sexy and on top!

And my my, aren't we in geek heaven -- there are so many comic book movies coming out! Just checked out some trailers on youtube. Hopefully most will be good adaptations. Love it!

More on the Culture Wars

2008-05-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic heat wave we had here in San Francisco. I took advantage of the great weather to bicycle across the Golden Gate Bridge the other day. On the way back, my friend and I checked out Chestnut Street in the Marina. I hadn't been on that strip of shops in a long time, and I found it a refreshing change of pace to the Mission. True, there was shockingly little diversity in the faces that passed me - it seemed more like Walnut Creek in that way - but I enjoyed how so many women were wearing heels and cute sun dresses.

As we strolled down Chestnut, a group of ex-frat boy types were walking in the opposite direction. "Hipsters Suck" read the t-shirt of one of them in big bold letters. That's when I realized the silliness of all this cultural warfare. You've got the hipsters in the Mission versus the yuppies in the Marina. Like the socs and the greasers in The Outsiders. But in many ways they are two sides of the same coin because hardliners of both persuasions can be intolerant, uniform-wearing fascists.

I ran into someone who worked at The Gates with me outside a coffee shop in the Mission. She's in Cal now, writing papers on her BDSM experience and adjusting to the socioeconomic climate change from Oakland to Berkeley, as well as anti-white scapegoating by some of her classmates (not the first time I've heard that!). She describes what I'm talking about as class warfare. But it really isn't. Most of us are in the same class. It's more like consumer choice. Like fighting over whether you like Pepsi or Coke.

Like when I was in LA eating at that trendy seafood restaurant in Hollywood, which wasn't exactly cheap. The people seated next to us, who we struck up a conversation with, were a long-haired guy in a t-shirt that said "grow revolution" and a heavily tattooed Amy Winehouse lookalike. When I told her I grew up in Echo Park, she enthusiastically expressed her love of the neighborhood because it didn't have that "corporate, mainstream" feel (I held back from putting them on the spot by joking about how much better Echo Park is now that the bohemian white people have moved in! Seriously, I'll take yummy vegan cafes over gun-toting cholos any day). In fact, she confided, she owned two properties there. No this isn't about class, but about seemingly competing worldviews that in relatively peaceful times co-exist well enough. It's when everyone feels their back is up against the wall like these turbulent times we live in now, that people think they need to choose sides.

Take Burning Man. When I first went in '96, my clubber friends were bemused that I would want to camp out in the desert for a week. Back then, generators were banished to a far corner of Black Rock City, electronic music was banished a mile away, and just about anyone could shoot guns or blow things up without a second glance. Now those same clubbers who didn't get it back then all go, albeit in RVs like so many folks now. So of course a culture war has ensued over who really is an authentic Burner. I remember being out on the playa one year and there were these cute furry-dressed people gathered around a fire, having just witnessed the histrionic euphoria of an Extra Action Marching Band performance. Some members of the band came up to the fire and proceeded drunkenly berate these poor people, with some harangue about "yuppies go home, get off our playa with your stupid fur." Even though I'm a veteran of The Burn, I still get attitude from people who think they were there first, because I don't wear the "right" uniform. How fragile our egos must be that we have to hold onto such high school-level tactics of superiority.

I am all too aware of the subtle signals which people project and pick up to base their judgments and decide whether you are an "us" or a "them." Sometimes I wish I could turn it off, this ultra-sensitivity I have. At the end of the day, I think it's incredibly simplistic to make assumptions about someone based on what they are wearing - or even what kind of car they have. Like I've had a hand-me-down SUV for a number of years. It was such a mark of shame for me when I first started driving it, because all of sudden I was one of those people and I could no longer give that holier-than-thou scowl to SUV drivers. I remember I drove it to Rainbow, a health food grocery coop, and a woman with a baby threw me the look of death as I parked next to her. I felt hatred there, and I couldn't imagine how that would help, or be a good lesson for her child. But it also made me angry, how polarized and unreasonable we all seem to have become. [Speaking of going green, current issue of Wired magazine has a great article addressing environmentalism, with a lot of ideas that jibe with my own personal philosophy.]

It's a lonely road, not caving into convention on any side - be it hipster vs. yuppie, kinky vs. vanilla, altered vs. natural, pc vs. mac, organic vs. genetically modified, old Burning Man vs. new Burning Man... so many of these are false dichotomies. By not towing some party line by dressing and acting a certain way, you end up getting it from every direction. I'd rather endure the disdain, dismissals and misunderstanding. To me, this cultural extremism is frustrating, idiotic and downright scary. Whatever happened to free thinking and "no enemy?"

Tale of Two Cities

2008-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm positively bubbling with energy and enthusiasm, having just returned from the second day of Robert McKee's Story Seminar. This is the writing workshop that was dramatized in the movie Adaptation. Great stuff! I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

So my trip down to LA was an awesome mini vacation. I was there four days during a four-day heat wave and each day was hotter than the last. "You heated up the town. It cooled down as soon as you left," my sister told me over the phone.

It was a homecoming, in an odd sort of way. I feel like I've finally figured that town out and learned how to enjoy it, after all the pain it delivered to me in the past. Before, I was a big-eyed little mongrel from the wrong side of the tracks, and any time someone said "boo!" I'd jump.

With the wrong attitude, LA is the perfect launch pad for one's self-destruction, and because of bad memories I had been bashing it ever since I left. Early in my adulthood, I whithered in the unrelenting Southland sun, finding the nurturing shelter I needed in the sweet sensitivity of the Bay Area. But now, it's like I've grown my desert spines, and for the first time since leaving I'm receptive to its crazy, sexy, flashy, driven energy.

LA can be a blast if you don't take it all so seriously (it doesn't hurt that I can jump on a plane when it gets to be too much). It's a serious con game down there, and I mean that in the full sense of the phrase -- confidence game. It seems like everyone is trying to throw you off your game, spook you into flinching. I used to cringe at it all and get psyched out, my shy self hating all the showboating and posturing that seemed necessary to get ahead.

But I've changed enough to not see it that way anymore. I believe in myself so strongly now, I understand you don't need to perform, you just need to be yourself and hold steady. And what's really cool is that like attracts like, so when you're in a good space down there, you meet others who are too. Yes, there are some lovely souls who do not adhere to the prevailing "let's be assholes to each other" attitude. And in a way it's even easier to find the real good people when you put out that laid-back San Francisco vibe, since admittedly they are more rare!

Here's a pic from the trip. Faces blurred to protect the not-so-innocent! This is at a trendy seafood place in Hollywood where we saw the fat kid from Superbad - he was very sweet when I ran into him coming out of the loo. I actually saw tons of celebrities down there, pointed out to me courtesy of a friend who accompanied me. I don't think I would have noticed otherwise. But it was fun to realize they were there -- they made for great wallpaper to my own my little adventures.

Going out with a couple of my girlfriends down there at another posh eatery (the kind where the waitstaff are all obnoxious wannabe actors), we noticed how many women - as beautifully dressed as they were - looked uncomfortable in their own skin. We just ignored them and had a great time amongst ourselves. So I say if you don't buy into that insecure, competitive bullshit, you've already got a headstart. But I do think it's harder to get centered in LA. Of course it is - because LA has no center! At least not geographically, as for the rest you can decide for yourself.

So my change of heart about LA has come as a pretty big surprise to my loved ones. I mean, I've been talking shit about my hometown for 12 years straight! "What?!" was my soft-spoken sister's reaction when I told her I kind of missed it down there. "Are you feeling well?" is what my best friend asked. What gives? In two words: The Mission.

I knew that moving into the tragically hip Mission five years ago would eventually arouse a backlash within me. All those heroin-chic, thrift shop fashionistas with their "you're either with us or against us" extremism, self-righteous tattooed smugness and hypocritical "we're against the dominant paradigm" alternative uniformity is starting to get to me. I am not lookist, don't care about all the pot bellies or plumber's cracks. I don't even mind the scabby look so much. But when these same denizens of Valencia Street try to make me feel like I don't belong here because I haven't raked my appearance over in the mirror to erase any signs of the dreaded Establishment, then I've just about had it.

What one of my friends who is African-American says about the South is that she doesn't mind it there, because at least the racism is out in the open. That's how I feel about LA when it comes to appearance. The superficiality is out in the open. Not hidden in holier-than-thou tripe.

Here in the City, I used to feel like I had to bend over backwards to prove myself as a diplomat of the conventionally attractive. Places like Burning Man parties, where when I'm lost in the sensual embrace of one of my girlfriends on the dancefloor, a frumpy girl will try to butt in and get grabby -- without even a smile on her face -- because she feels oppressed by our display and wants to put us on the spot for her discomfort. I've learned that you can never please the deeply insecure, who usually end up projecting their own feelings of inferiority onto you by blaming you for perceived slights. I find people like this to be the most self-centered of them all.

There may be a tyranny of the beautiful people in LA, but in the City it's like that communist ideal where we are all supposed to be the same and not make anyone feel bad by standing out. But what if I stand out naturally? I used to go to efforts to try to ugly myself down before going to certain social events in the City, because I knew that people wouldn't talk to me otherwise. Enough with the pc double standard - why is it only trannies that get to look hot here?

I was even accused of being an interloper at one private polysexual play party I attended, which of course the accusers knew was ridiculous. It was simply their way of making me feel unwelcome. OK I'll stop, I don't feel sorry for myself - I'm not going to cry "don't hate me because I'm beautiful!" - I'm just pointing out how the Bay Area has its own brand of lookism and snobbery. But I still love it up here. Every place has its trade-offs.

One little snippet of a conversation I overhead sitting outside a bar and grill on the Sunset strip encapsulated LA nicely for me. These two women were talking animatedly over beers about a mutual acquaintance who had just published a book.

"It's fucken awesome, don't you see? She wrote a book! Who cares what it's about. It doesn't even matter what it's about. The fact is she wrote a book and got it published."

That's LA for you. Super into achievement, but a bit short on content - LOL! San Francisco has its intellectualism, though we sometimes get lost in all that processing. I am learning that there is room in my heart to love both cities, flaws and all.

#

Modern Hero by Roger Woods

No one is immune...

2008-05-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

I was distressed to hear of the police raid and bust of the New York house of domination Rebecca's Hidden Chamber last month. Six women who worked as Mistresses were arrested for prostitution, their legal names made public record and published in the New York Post, New York Daily News, and USA Today, among others.

The New York Post article quoted a former client who wished to remain anonymous. He said it was widely known that the ladies of the Hidden Chamber would do sexual services along with the typical BDSM fare.

I'm quite skeptical of this information from an unnamed source, and find it interesting how others in the community have used it as a shield to deny the arbitrary and hypocritical nature of contemporary American law enforcement. They were doing something wrong, so they got what they deserved. But we don't do that, so we'll be okay. Dream on!

In The Tickling Forum, a Mistress KC from the Hidden Chamber responded to other poster's tsk tsks with the following:

"A pity!? Come on and use your head. Do you think a girl would waste her time sitting in a dom house and spending her money buying dom gear to charge $220 in exchange for sexual intercourse? Give us some more credit.

I'm very close with the women involved, being one of the 30+ mistresses who weren't arrested and call the HC home. We love each other like a family there.

They are our dear friends and I know I hate seeing their names slandered, I can only imagine what it's like for them and what they had to deal with while being held in custody. I hate it. The other 30 or so of us happened not to be working that day... it could have been any of us."

Worst case scenario - that they were engaging in prostitution - we are still dealing with an essentially victimless crime. Consensual activity between two adults. The same activity which is legal in brothels in the state of Nevada, which is given the blind eye at places like Mitchell Brothers here in San Francisco, and which is totally above board if recorded for pornographic distribution. Does this make any sense?

What it comes down to, once again, is society not being OK with women taking full control of their sexuality. When there are structures of establishment power in place that mediate women's individual control (i.e. where men can run things e.g. porn, brothels), then there seems to be more leeway. And women in these mediated situations are also given more of a break in that they are often portrayed as victim rather than brazen hussy.

But women who unapologetically engage in sex for financial gain, with their eyes wide open and without any inducement from men, are still being vilified today. Like a modern-day witch-hunt, they are castigated for their boldness and their intransigence. The intensity of the reactions they provoke speaks volumes about how deeply held the taboo remains. It is a form of discrimination which I hope one day will seem quaintly old-fashioned.

Shoe on the Other Foot

2008-04-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Now I know what it feels like. To be on the receiving end, listening to words you would rather not hear, getting a peak into a world you have never bothered to notice, feeling the confusion and anger of cognitive dissonance as you realize this doesn't make any sense to you, doesn't fit into your neat picture of how things should be.

My friend who is an escort is telling me about a client, an old man who was on top of her humping her, how his red face and sweaty body made her worry for his health, and how she wondered if he wore dentures, visualizing them falling out onto her face.

And I am thinking about the conversations I have had with straight friends, about swinging or domme work. How one-sided they were, with the other person looking away, not saying much, waiting for me to finish and change the subject.

There was a girl who hated me when I first started at The Gates, because I would walk into the lounge after a session and talk excitedly about the strap-on play I had just done. I couldn't imagine that anyone would not be interested in what I had to say, or couldn't take the graphic detailing of my actions.

Ah, how funny it is when the shoe is on the other foot!

My friend writes me a note about how lucky she feels to be having so much fun and making such great connections. I know she had an amazing "date" the other night, so she is buzzing with it. Hot sex while being treated like a $$$ princess seems like a dream job to her, no doubt in large part because of the ego boost. But I know there is a lot more going on.

I am happy for her. I support her. She is brave in her own way. Yet my empathy can only go so far. There is a reason why it wasn't anything I thought about too much, until it came crashing into my reality.

A voice cries out inside me that it's is so conventional, so materially-focused, so everything that I have strove against. Part of me is offended. That the professional side of the craft I consider sacred is full of interlopers who migrate from one type of sex work to another. That when I was still actively commercial with my play, my escort friends would ask me, "How's business?" as if what we did were the same thing.

It is not the same thing!

Yes, I am feeling sensitive about it right now. I know my feelings will change with greater perspective and distance from the professional role I held for almost six years. With hindsight, I would have closed my stable to newcomers after four years. Kept more of that lovely glow and a bit less of the tarnish. When you hunker down for fear of moving on, it can wear on you. Well, all the more critical insights for me to share about the experience! I admit this because no matter what critiques I may make, I do think professional domination is an admirable path to follow, for however long it works.

I am proud of the fact that, for most of my career, I was a house-affiliated domme. The sisterhood, the sense of security, the shared energy - these were all integral to my sense of enjoyment when I was a full-time dominatrix. I am saddened that there is such a dearth of houses of domination in the Bay Area - not even one in the City! LA and New York both have quite a few well-established houses. Maybe one day...

Independence was hard for me. The screening of new people and the disappointment when undesirables somehow made it through - that is where most of the tarnish came from. There is a dark undercurrent to domination. And I think that the more special you are, the more protection you need. Seeing new applicants alone as an independent made me feel too accessible.

There is a psychological difference between doing a scene in a house and doing one as an independent that is not often discussed. Ironically, because I felt safer about boundaries and therefore more confident in the house, I was comfortable wearing lingerie or something more "girly" into scene. Whereas with independence, I felt more vulnerable and intimate in the first place, causing me to want to don high fetish as a sort of armor.

I received so many congratulations upon my independence from would-be slaves. Yet I saw this act, necessary as it was for my personal growth, as a wrenching away of my community, thrusting me into isolation and artifice. It seems strange to me that so many session-seekers preferred it. On one level, I think it's because they can feel more special, more catered to, more the object of the Mistress' undivided attention. For me, not everyone deserves such treatment. And so, I closed ranks with those I already knew, trusted and liked.

And now, I have begun the first tentative steps in exploring "lifestyle" D/s relationships. At first, I could only get myself to play with women, finding the need to free myself from all the associations that gender brought up for me. More recently, I have started connecting in this way with a few close male friends - creative and accomplished individuals whose need to be taken by a powerful woman matches my own need to overtake, control and deliver.

I feel my power in a new way. There is a lovely ease to it. To be reminded that both my sadistic and nurturing desires, my urge to dominate and penetrate, truly come from within and are not simply profit-motivated. Before, when I considered integrating D/s more fully into my life, I worried over how it may disrupt my existing relationships. But now, it feels easy, like I was thinking too hard about it. And the craziest thing is, there are a lot more real submissives outside of the professional arena! Who woulda thunk? :)

Off to the Southland

2008-04-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'll be down in La La Land for a few days, likely reporting my 'findings' upon my return. Be well!

Future Sex

2008-04-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm studying Botany right now. Plants have strange sex lives. Imagine there is an extra step in the reproductive process. That instead of the sperm and egg simply being one-celled precursors to the embryo, they each grew up into a full-fledged life form. Then the being that started out as an egg gets fertilized by the "walking sperm man". Only the baby inside her would be a human as we know them, with a full set of chromosomes from both parents. That's like plants. Or at least that's how I visualize them to get my mind around the concept of "alternation of generations."

Realizing how different plants are from us in terms of their sexual processes makes me re-think my assumptions about sex. Could human sexuality evolve into something different in the future? I often wonder about this, and find it makes for an intriguing thought experiment.

Fantasy being so much a part of my erotic life, I believe the ability to totally immerse in a realistic virtual setting where one can take on whatever form one fancies will be a reality. This crossed my mind the other day while I was topping a pet who dons a particularly elaborate disguise during playtime. In the flurry and excitement of the scene, I realized that I didn't really consider my submissive to be the same person who walks through the door, their appearance was so strikingly different from one to the other. I marvelled at how one day, we will all be able to morph ourselves - at least virtually - to suit our aesthetic and sexual whims.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have a real cock. But without losing my breasts, or the curves or soft skin that I love about being a woman. To be a sexy hermaphrodite with a fully functional, lovely cock. In the future, someone has got think of a way to hook up a strap-on so that all the points of the phallus match up with nerves in the clitoris. After all, the clit is really just a tiny cock, being the analogous structure in women. Pair this device with virtual reality, and I can see for myself what it feels to penetrate, from the inside.

A few years back, I played with a post-op male-to-female transsexual who did a lot of kink play in Second Life, an online 3D virtual world, including before her surgery. She said there were many playspaces and shops for those into BDSM, and mentioned virtual collars that that could be programmed to move the submissive into different positions at the command of the dominant. She said that there was so much D/s play in Second Life, she couldn't imagine it was used for anything else!

I remember around the same time talking to an undergrad on campus during a technology conference who said he always entered Second Life as a girl. He said he did it because it was easier to socialize. People were more friendly, approachable and helpful. I wonder how many of the femme avatars are in fact virtual cross-dressers. I bet a lot!

Sometimes I rue the way that biology (including sex) gets in the way of creative and intellectual endeavors. It seems that women are burdened with this distraction more than men, being the more obvious objects of attraction and the vessels of reproduction. What if we stepped into a Brave New World freedom, where we totally separated the physical act of sex from perpetuation of the species, the latter being completed outside the woman's body. Would that change the balance between the sexes? Would it cause women to lose their standing as Mothers, the great creators?

What if eventually people decided actual physical differentiation of the sexes was unwelcome, either because it's too disruptive to mental achievement or just aesthetically unappealing (with the recent coining of the term "metrosexual" to describe men who wax and primp as much as women, perhaps we are already moving in this direction). Would we then compartmentalize our sexuality as recreational roleplay in virtual reality, taking on whatever appearance - male, female, something in between - that suited us at the moment? My feeling is that for all the pain it causes us, we will want to keep sexuality an integral part of our actual physical reality. But you never know...

It's fascinating to ponder the possible evolution of sex. Perhaps at the end of the day, it will remain largely the same as it has, and such conjecture is nothing more than interesting premises for futuristic stories. Only time will tell.

Beauty Unbound

2008-04-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

When I started out as a pro domme, I used to wear my glasses into scene, along with just a hint of make-up. I understood how to get all dolled up and ultra-femme glamorous, but I reserved that for my nightclub and swinger party forays. It seemed ridiculous to go for the showgirl look when trying to convey a more stern and serious tone. Besides, I was confident in my appearance, and did not feel the need to overly embellish.

In those early days, though I may have been inexperienced in running a BDSM scene, my power was contained within myself and dependent on no one. I was like a virgin in the original sense of the word - before it meant someone who has not yet had sex, it meant a woman "beholden to no man.” A woman unbound by the obligation or desire to do or be a certain way for another.

Before I entered pro domination, I had been an active adventurer of the amateur persuasion. I jet-setted to Miami, New York, LA and Vegas for the best dance and swinger parties there and here in the City. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood (Echo Park back in its "Mi Vida Loca" days, no less) influenced my love of getting dressed up in sexy, funky original outfits.

My club friends and I would joke that we made great drag queens. We would always get our pictures taken for local magazines and websites when we went out. It was fun to pose for the camera. We were stars in our own little world.

In the swinger scene, my partner and I attended A-List, invitation-only gatherings which sometimes required that photos be submitted beforehand for approval. I know that sounds pretty superficial - and it was - but it was also a lot of fun to run around in outrageous get-ups and be immersed in all that sexual energy. Sheer, racy outfits that would only bring you trouble in an ordinary club brought you smiles, compliments and plenty of attention from the couples and single women who peopled these events.

One summer we even went on an all-inclusive vacation to Mexico where we hung out with porn stars. We watched them make their movies all day against the backdrop of a white sand beach and coconut palms. It was a wild time, and I kept getting mistaken for the "talent." What struck me though, was that most of my friends in the swinger and club scenes were more naturally pretty than the porn stars.

I stood out with my boy short hair back then, giving me a slightly androgynous look that was emphasized further by a mischievous sneering grin and body toned from hours of kick-boxing. I became infamous for wielding a mean strap-on at orgies. Girls would line up, while their men would whisper their secret desires in my ear. I saw sex not in terms of how much value should be placed on each and every little act and interaction, but more as this amazing free-for-all.

In both the dance club scene and the swinger scene, men and women would regularly come up to me, my partner or my friends to say how "hot" I was and how "playful" and "natural" I seemed with my sexuality. I tried not to let it all get to my head, and I think I had a healthy confidence in my own attractiveness and erotic powers.

Swinging was great for encountering so many different types of women: the hot blondes, smouldering brunettes, petite Asians, squirters, big fake tits, perky real ones, the expert pussy-eaters... It was a smorgasbord of flesh, and I had no issues with objectifying others or myself.

I had no issues with fake versus real. Or blonde versus brunette. Or white versus non-white. I had no issues with strippers. All these issues came up for me after I turned pro. It commercialized eroticism for me, turning former playmates into either the competition (women) or my secret judges (men).

No wonder as soon as I began taking sessions, I could no longer swing. It's the slut versus whore dichotomy. Once you start placing dollar value on erotic acts, it becomes harder to give anything away. I saw this happen with a girlfriend at the time who is an escort. She felt so special on her paid dates, that the swapping she felt obligated to do with her boyfriend felt demeaning to her.

As I've mentioned before, I was so naive when I first became a dominatrix, I had no idea there were online review systems with associated message boards that the men employed to anonymously rate their encounters. This was when my fantasy of being a domme first took a drubbing. My very first review the guy said that with my tanned body and friendly demeanor, I could make a killing being a sensual masseuse. That completely mortified me. Why the hell would I aspire to that? My mistake at the time was giving too much power to this silly man's words with its arbitrary labels. I became paranoid that clients would think I didn't look "domme" enough.

The review system felt completely dehumanizing to me, with ratings for looks on a scale of 1 to 10. On one site, this is broken down further into face and body. What got to me is that reviewers almost always rated my body higher than my face. I guess that's a fate I can share with Britney Spears LOL! I think it's because I never showed my face, so they were trying to give some context to what it looked like. Can there be anything more subjective than rating a face? I mean, you show people a face and ask them to rate it, then change the hair color or hair cut of the same face, and you'll likely get an entirely different opinion.

After basking in such positive - and unsolicited - feedback from those in my social circles for so many years before going pro, I was unprepared for the heightened scrutiny one receives in the public spotlight. Remember Christina Aguilera in her rebellious phase when she had punked-out hair and facial piercings? The press gave her such a hard time, she sang that song "I am beautiful, no matter what you say," then went completely conventional with her look.

As for me, I stopped wearing my glasses, grew my hair out, started wearing colored contacts and more make-up in scene. At one point, I even clipped in extensions to add volume to my hair. All in some vain effort to look attractive to absolutely everyone who came to see me.

Up 'til then, I'd always relied on my good hapa genes to get me by. This was the first time in my life that I learned all the the feminine tricks to applying make-up and fixing hair. Though I am glad for the knowledge, I am also glad that I don't feel the need to do that to myself all the time!

Needless to say, for a while there I fell into the trap of getting caught up in a game I could never win - mass approval. That's the trap that fells many women in show biz as they get surgery after surgery to achieve that boring, lowest-common-denominator prettiness. Nepotism is good for something, namely getting exposed to the out-of-the-box beauty of a Kim Kardashian, Sofia Coppola, Isabella Rosselini or even Tori Spelling. Thankfully, I seem to have escaped the boring beauty trap unscathed. And when I found out recently that some people were trashing me online for my attitude, I actually felt gratified. I must be doing something right to draw their ire unprovoked. How I see it, seeking validation from the peanut gallery is like going to a party full of degenerates and feeling hurt that no one wants to talk to you.

The ratings of looks are not just subjective based upon the preferences of the rater (ethnicity, haircolor, breast size, body type, etc), but also a reflection of perceived value. For instance, take my escort friend I mentioned earlier. She is someone who has consistently been rated 10 in looks and performance in reviews over the past few years on a site which covers all types of "providers" across the country. Yet this same woman encountered difficulty obtaining an invitation to a popular A-List swinger party. Like some other escorts I know, her ratings have gotten progressively higher as her rates have increased. So there is a perceived value being projected here. If a man pays thousands of dollars for a date, she better be a 10, right?

Perceived value also seems to reflect the level of sexual activity allowed by the woman, rating pro dommes more harshly for not "putting out." A man who would go behind a pro domme's back to review her - on a site where dommes are lumped together with women who give handjobs and have PV intercourse with their clients - is more likely to be the kind of man who carries resentment over the fact that he cannot be more sexual with his Mistress. I think he is also more likely to be uncomfortable with his own enjoyment of the femme domme role reversal, particularly the fact that he is the receptive, penetrated partner.

Since it has become industry standard among pro dommes to show one's face, I believe those of us who choose not to are rated more harshly for this as well. It's as if you are punished for trying to keep something for yourself. The more you expose yourself and make yourself vulnerable, seeking validation and approval from the powers that be (i.e. the men who are potential clients), the more you are patted on the head and told you are a good girl.

I have been wondering as of late if there really is an untenable contradiction between being a dominant woman and being a professional service provider. The longer I did it, the more I seemed to care about what the men thought, and the less I felt connected to my inner strength and sense of self. And in the beginning, every time I was reviewed without my permission, I seriously contemplated quitting.

In fact, my commercial withdrawal now was precipitated by a recent unauthorized review -- of a scene which took place at The Gates over a year ago! Perhaps I shouldn't admit that these things bother me. But that would be bullshit. In the end, I do feel that I am too good for this. To have to deal with such invasions of privacy, callous disclosures of intimate exchanges and disrespect for my rules. Maybe that's the real reason why some people have to talk trash. Because they know I'm better than all that, that I never deigned to stoop down to their level and "admit" that I am really there just to serve them.

Whatever the case, there were signals that it was time to say goodbye. I have no regrets. I learned and lived so much. I had so many thrilling, joyous moments. It's just now, I can also talk about the rest.

The private playtime I continue to enjoy feels lighter, truer and more intense.

My hair is cut short again.

I count my blessings.

2012, Singularity, Apocalypse, Oh My!

2008-04-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

The Japanese are such great trendsetters. Like the other night I saw a TV news story about the rising popularity of male geishas. Women executives have money but no time to pursue romance, and with geishas they are treated like queens by adorable boys.

When I saw the men who do this work, I was struck by how feminine they all seemed. They looked like cute little rockers or man-boy lovers in a yaoi manga, with long spiky hair lightened and styled to perfection. They were skinny, fashionable and had great skin. One geisha they interviewed said he made $200,000 a year and also received many gifts of outfits and accessories from his patrons, as they liked him to look his best for them.

I got such a kick out of this story. Men servicing women -- gotta love it! One of my friends, when he heard this, said half-jokingly, “The end of the world must be near.” Despite being a sexual freak, he has a conservative streak as well. He had a similar reaction when Oprah was talking about teenagers holding “rainbow” parties (the girls all wear different colored lipstick, then turn off the lights and give the boys fellatio. Lights on and everyone checks out the evidence to figure out who blew who), and when Tila Tequila had her bisexual love competition on MTV. I guess we all get dated at some point LOL!

Speaking of the end of the world, this is a concept which never fails to resonate. Remember how Y2K was supposed to be it? Well just because 2000 came and went doesn’t mean we are out of the danger zone. Exploring Mayan ruins reminded me of how 2012 is coming up. That’s the end of a 5000-year cycle of the Mayan calendar, when there's supposed to be a "transition from the current Creation world into the next." I know several intelligent, successful people here in the city who are really into it. I suppose it’s rather convenient to only have to plan for another 4 years!

Then there’s the Singularity. I am a science geek so this one has fascinated me for a while. The concept is borrowed from physics and black holes, where it means an end-point where space-time as we know no longer works. In a broader sense, it’s been used to describe the exponentially increasing rate of technological progress (eg Moore’s Law), which appears to be leading us to a significant shift such as the emergence of artificial intelligence, our merging with machines, or the creation of new biological life forms.

High-profile proponents of the Singularity include inventor Ray Kurzweil, who is featured in the latest Wired, and Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, who has a good interview in the lastest Reason. And though he is not an advocate of the Singularity per se, I don’t think you can discuss the incredibly rapid pace of change we are experiencing without mentioning Craig Venter. I saw him speak recently and the work he is doing is amazing – sequencing the human genome, then going out and doubling the number of known genes and being just a few steps away from reverse-engineering life. His goal is to create artificial biological organisms to solve our energy crisis and create vaccines. Whatever you may think of what he's doing, it sure seems like people should be paying more attention!

As a spiritual seeker, I have also been in touch with what's going on in the community of meditators, practitioners of mind-body awareness and the like. I swear, even now, I don’t know what you call this arena. People don't like the term “New Age,” but is there anything better? Not everyone is Buddhist, and there really is no practice that everyone does. The one thing I'd say people in this category have in common is a focus on being in the present moment.

But anyways, when I was involved with a weekly transformative practice group, we did a lot of reading (like Eckhart Tolle’s "The Power of Now”, which I hear is Oprah’s new passion) and at times had speakers visit with us. Sometimes our teacher would let us know beforehand that the person who would be addressing us, say the esteemed Adyashanti, was considered by many to be “enlightened.” This was always said as if the word had quotes around it, as no one could entirely agree on what it meant to be enlightened. Yet from my explorations in this world, I saw that there is a growing consensus that the number of enlightened people is increasing. So here too, there is a sense that we are moving to an end point in the game.

Back to pop culture, we have both Terminator 2: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Battlestar Galactica talking about “Judgment Day” and the Apocalypse. You even had the last couple of episodes of T2 quoting from the book of Revelation in the bible. And that got me to thinking about a National Geographic article I read about the lost books of the new testament and reinterpretations of the biblical scriptures. There is one scholar, I believe it might be Dr. Bart Ehrman, who claims that the King James version of Revelations is a poor translation. Specifically, that in a passage describing the last days on earth, a word that is translated to be mean “destruction” is a mistranslation. And that the actual definition of the word is closer to “rebirth.”

Having gone to Sunday school and studied the bible quite extensively in my childhood, that really hit me. What difference would it make to people, if they saw the Apocalypse as a time of rebirth – of enlightenment! – rather than death, destruction and misery. What if we stopped thinking that one day we would suffer gloriously for our sins? I know I know, most of us don’t believe that stuff anymore. But how deeply ingrained are those notions in our collective psyche? Do they make us try less, feeling that dark days are our inevitable and just punishment?

Well maybe one day, this other more optimistic translation will be commonplace. That is, unless the robots over take first. All the more reason to carpe diem. That's right, pluck it while it's ripe!

Escaping the Binary

2008-04-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

I had a funny moment during my vacation, when a bunch of us who had just gone on a jungle expedition together were talking about what's on Reality TV. Someone mentioned that Red Sonja actress who had been married to Sylvestor Stallone and we were all trying to think of her last name. "It's Bridget something," someone said.

I blurted out "Oh you mean Bridgette Kerkove!" I totally thought I was right.

A half second pause as people pondered this answer than someone said "No, it's not that" and the conversation moved on.

A few seconds later, I realized I had shouted out the name of a hardcore anal pornstar. I was cracking up on the inside, just a tinge anxious at the thought that someone might recognize my slip-up.

One of the men at the table had just been talking about how he had been a prosecutor, then switched over to the defense side. His wife had quipped, in droll good humor, "Yeah, you used to get off the hookers."

It was a bit surreal. Playing it straight with these strangers, wondering what they would think if they knew some of my best friends were involved in the world's oldest profession.

#

One of the challenges I face in life is trying not to be too binary in my thinking. I have a tendency to swing the pendulum, so that if something doesn't work out my automatic reaction is to completely reject it. Like I was pretty involved in my personal spiritual journey for a couple of years there, meditating, practicing yoga religiously, going on a vision quest, pursuing the healing arts and reading lots of books that you find in the self-help section.

I learned a lot from those explorations. Yet towards the end, an accumulation of negative experiences turned me against the whole venture. The most major thing that happened was I injured my arms overtraining in bodywork. I had sought out schooling in the healing arts to expand my knowledge and understanding, never thinking that I could end up compromising one of my most precious creative outlets - my ability to write! At one point, both my arms were constantly burning and it hurt to use a pen or keyboard.

Thankfully, a great physical therapist has taught me a lot about body mechanics and trusting my own intuition to really listen to my body so I can give it what it needs at any particular moment, be it treatment with ice, a little stretching, or some strengthening exercises.

But at the time, I felt resentful that an endeavor that was supposed to help me develop as a person caused me so much anguish. What made it worse was feeling manipulated by a teacher at the school I attended, a charismatic and good-looking practitioner who flirted with me relentlessly.

Definitely a theme that played out during this period of spiritual exploration was meeting people who claimed to be enlightened on one level or another, then finding myself disappointed. I think I opened up my heart too much, and let go of my judgment because I somehow thought that people on this path were different.

As I was going through this, I was blogging about it here and crafting my former session site to reflect my spiritual leanings. That drew a new type of seeker to Mistress, and unfortunately some of these were also wolves in sheeps clothing.

I encountered an individual who thought me more tantrika than domina, making a crude and overtly sexual overture to me after our last session. Then there was the lover-of-all-things-Asian; a well-to-do life coach who tortured me over the phone a few times with his unbelievable sense of entitlement. Both of these men talked the talk - of energy, centeredness and balance, yet it seemed to have been a substitute for rather than a signal of real understanding and connectedness. Alas, I grew disillusioned.

I found refuge in a countering philosophy, which allowed me to retrench by pulling away from an overly generous approach in my interpersonal connections, and hold my head up high again with unapologetic pride in all that I am. I needed to move away from that enforced sense of humility and the overexposed vulnerability, and this was the perfect antidote. I will likely write more about this later, as it merits its own entry.

Since then, I have realized that my wholesale denunciation of spiritual development went too far. I have begun enjoying the benefits of meditation and yoga once again, this time with a more watchful eye rather than pure, receptivity.

So, now that I have eased out of professional domination, I am on the lookout in this arena as well. I don't want to be one of those people who, upon moving on from a pursuit, feel the need to denounce it. Granted, there is some venting to be done. In the beginning, I used to marvel at my ability to even do this work, as sensitive as I am. As I wind down, I am starting to feel the blowback. Nothing permanent or ghastly, just some of the less pleasant aspects re-surfacing. I feel it is to be expected and I welcome it for the introspection it has engendered.

Now that I am free from commercial pressures, you will likely see a more uncensored side of me come out on this blog. I suspect it will be a perspective more immediately relatable to my peers, as evidenced by a recent email from an esteemed domina who let me know my recent post "Perceptions, in the Eye of the Beholder" moved her to tears. I am honored when my words can inspire other women, and aspire to include more in my audience of readers.

So, you may hear me give my take on the more hidden, inner workings of the pro domme world, such as the review system, the spectrum of erotic work, and the nature of professional versus amateur play, as well as the psychological underpinnings involved. The sociology is fascinating, indeed!

Free Flying

2008-04-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

What a blissful 2 weeks spent in the Caribbean! Jetting out onto the choppy, big waves of the open ocean to reach the oasis of an island atoll. Then scuba diving and snorkeling amidst coral reefs teeming with sharks, rays and the playful colors and curious habits of all the tropical fish. Spelunking through cavernous, wet caves glittering with quartz, massive stalagtites, giant spiders and shrieking bats. Bush-whacking through the jungle, with its mysterious pyramid ruins, led by a machete-wielding guide in the eerie darkness of a starry night, the guttural roar of howler monkeys cutting through the relentless buzz of nocturnal insects.

To be immersed in the adventure of the natural world, while slowing down to steep in the ways of a laid back culture, with its strangely blood-thirsty history of fierce pirates and ritualistic Maya. Now that was a sweet little break. A time to step away, fresh air for my mind and body, leisurely contemplating new horizons in a place where I am no one to anyone.

I will always be searching to know more, learning and sharing along the way, whether on this path or another.

And now time to catch up, move forward and keep fighting the good fight.

Free flying and feeling good. Life is beautiful!

Perceptions, in the Eye of the Beholder

2008-03-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

I was interviewed this morning by a graduate student of sociology who is doing her dissertation on pro dommes' relationships with their clients. I find that conversations like these, where I am asked to lay out the hows and whys of this peculiar career choice, can help elucidate my own journey to myself.

One thing that came up for me was the frustration I have felt at times from being misunderstood by those who have sought me out for sessions. In my mind, submitting to a femme domme presents a unique opportunity to interact with a woman who sees beyond conventional male-female dynamics in erotic and power exchange. You would think that, wouldn't you? Yet too often, I encountered men who assumed the opposite - that my professional status meant that I was there to serve rather than be served, with the rest of it simply a form of acting on my part.

I even detected a whiff of pity from more than a few, who seemed to think I was caught up in a form of "white slavery" (or I guess in my case, it would be creamy yellow slavery!). There was one who used to irk me by saying at the end of the session, a note of surprise in his voice, "You really seem to enjoy this."

"Wow," I thought, "this guy totally doesn't get it," ushering him out the door before the mystique could be tarnished for me further. I should have let him go at that point. I later came to regret keeping him on, as he went behind my back and wrote a review without my permission. Alas, I do not give second chances for such a betrayal.

The pity manifests particularly within the Asian fetishists. Funny, being only half Asian and growing up in Los Angeles, I was as likely to be mistaken for Latina or some other ethnicity than pinpointed as a Eurasian while living down there. My racial ambiguity proved to be a long-standing puzzle, as classmates who knew me for years would finally bust out with the "What are you anyway?" question on the verge of our graduation.

So I was fairly surprised, when first making my entrance into the field as a self-proclaimed Eurasian dominatrix, that I was never questioned on this. In fact, it felt like all some saw was the Asian in me. I think labels are an amazing thing like that. Prep someone by telling them beforehand that this person fits in this category, and that is what they see.

But I digress. The pity I sensed emanating from Asian fetishists seems to have roots in the Madame Butterfly myth: the noble but fallen woman who martyrs herself at the hands of unsavory men. A delicate flower who sacrifices her graces to satisfy the unseemly appetites of rapacious scoundrels. Ah, the melodrama!

This craft has always been about taking charge of my life, having the courage to manifest my passions and turn my fantasies into reality. That there are those who think it is about forcing myself into uncomfortable situations, for who knows what reason... Money, attention, some masochistic complex?

I shake my head at this, and can only speculate on how this seems to be a projection of unacknowledged issues on their part. I have a college degree, worked vanilla jobs successfully, am not stuck in the sex work ghetto, nor paralyzed by psychological demons.

These awkward interactions do highlight an ongoing challenge for me. Though I support myself in attempting to understand the underpinnings of these alternate beliefs which posit my experience more as passive object than volitional actor, I struggle with not allowing the empathy I gain to cause me to take on these values.

Like taking reviews too seriously. In my opinion, their very nature clashes with a true femme domme perspective. The teacher's pet inside me still strives to get an A. Colleagues advise me to just look away. Yet I can't. Perhaps it's like a car accident that I can't turn away from. I like to think it's more like biting into the fruit of knowledge. Yes, I am now cast out of Eden. But I know.

Knowing how men think about attractiveness without the niceties they use when speaking directly to women has been hard, no bones about it. I guess I'm a believer in trial by fire, because in the end I am grateful for being exposed to this truth. We, as women and girls, are told from the time we are very little how pretty we are, how wonderful it is be pretty, and how dangerous it is to be un-pretty. It becomes an invisible achilles heel, a point of weakness, only temporarily bolstered by external validation.

Why not just blow it out of the water? See it for what is, in all its subjectivity and relative unimportance, rather than run around with silly delusions and insecurities. How much more productive would the world be if the female half of the population wasn't so trained to obsess over this?

Granted, taking care of one's appearance is a task I endorse for both men and women -- and there are times when I look around and can't stand the latest anti-beauty aesthetics of fashion. It's about balance and proportion, as in everything.

#

I'll be offline for a couple of weeks on spring break.

~Kinky thoughts and bittersweet dreams~

Musings on the Erotic Professional

2008-03-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Today I was supposed to participate in a round-table discussion with other local dominatrices that is set to be aired on Current TV. I decided against it.

I wrestled with this decision, as I saw it as an opportunity to contribute to an intelligent discussion of femme domination. Though in the end, I figured if I've gone this far without showing my face, why do it now?

Although I am not ashamed of what I do, I believe in using as much leverage as possible in life. I am not one to paint myself into a corner. I like to keep my options open.

I do applaud my peers who boldly reveal their visages on their websites. For those willing to take the risk, It is a great example of how dominas are truly different from others within the erotic realm.

Speaking of, look at the big commotion we are currently having over the governor of New York's indiscretions. When I was abroad during the Monica Lewinsky affair, foreigners I encountered were dumbfounded by America's seeming inability to accept the reality of typical, adult male sexual behavior. No doubt, many would view this latest scandal in the same light.

I do have mixed feelings of how session dominas are lumped in with other women engaged in eroticism for fun and profit. Not until I took down my Eros ad did I realize how relieved and happy I felt, not to be on that site anymore with its escorts and masseuses. As if being a Mistress is just an extra spicy appetizer on a plate full of female delights.

Surrounding myself with women who have been drawn to this craft, I have made friends with many who come from a very different background and approach than myself. A fair number of ladies fall into domination after trying out stripping, sensual massage, escorting or the like. More power to them for having the flexibility and strength to engage in these activities. I've learned to reserve judgment, for we are all so different. Yet I know deep down I'm uniquely authentic in this role, having never entertained men in these conventional ways. My friends who have say as much.

I came to session domination as an amateur - a swinger who occasionally attended fetish balls giddily dressed up in a burgeoning collection of vinyl uniforms, corsets and slick feline-inspired attire. I was blissfully immune for the longest time to the more blatantly commodifying aspects of the vocation. The more my eyes opened to to it, the less thrilled I was to put myself out there. Like many women who employ eroticism for gain, I was like a horse with blinders, unconsciously shielding myself from the distasteful side of the work.

In her memoir, Jenna Jameson talks about the fantasy of stripping and the reality of the hard work and ego-battering involved. I have had similar bubble-bursting shifts, from the first time I heard of anonymous online reviews with their cold-blooded ratings of attractiveness and "service" to the time a good friend confessed that she was a high-end escort and made ten times as much as me.

Hookers. What a trip to find that some of my dearest friends are prostitutes. How naive I was back in the day, when I would argue with the head mistress of The Gates over whether or not professional domination is sex work. I jumped in without knowing that the men usually touched themselves - or even that they stripped naked - in session. I just had a vague notion of wearing my cool fetish outfits and acting like catwoman. Well, at least I got that right!

This is how far I've come. When one of my first boyfriends mentioned he had visited prostitutes before we met, I was blown away. In my academically-nourished version of feminism, exploitive, sexist men who oppressed and objectified women did these things. Not nice guys I dated. I actually had to take time off from the relationship to decide whether or not I wanted to continue to be with him.

That was before I realized that almost all men will pay for sexual services at some point during their lifetime. I believe it's the nature of the sexual dynamic that exists between men and women - that men have to pay, that women never have to, and often can get paid. Perhaps the taboo applied to sex work is an attempt to cover up this power imbalance, shaming the women for having the power and charging for it.

So I'm pretty open-minded now. But I will admit that as some of my friends have moved into more explicit sex work, it has compelled me to move farther away from any association with it. Part of me is proud of their accomplishments, that they are some of the highest-rated and most expensive courtesans out there. They are beautiful, sophisticated and highly sexual creatures, unabashed in their financial ambitions and their ability to get what they want out of men.

The other part of me struggles with their decision to focus their creative and clever minds solely on the task of being an amusing companion, eye-candy and plaything on the arm of a wealthy man. These are ladies from good families with parents who are scientists, doctors, serious professionals. It makes me wonder if I could ever be proud of a daughter who is a prostitute.

You may think me a hypocrite for such a statement, especially as a Mistress who is paid tribute. Here's how I see it. I half-jokingly like to say that a pro domme is a lot more like a nun than like any other kind of sex worker. Maybe it's just that I'm not the romantic type, but I've come to believe that prostitutes have more in common with trophy wives and fiancees with the big rocks on their fingers than they do with me. I've always cringed at the so-called submissive who acted like we were on a vanilla date. OK, so we are all on Eros. To me, the extent of the likeness stops there. The difference, beyond the obvious of who assumes the dominant role, is DENIAL.

Indeed, since closing my stable to newcomers, I have become the ultimate tease and denial Mistress! For almost six years, I extended the invitation to apply for servitude. Those who have been around, have had their chance. As for novices, they are better suited elsewhere, my patience for the inexperienced having waned over time. Writing to me now to request entry, telling me that you have been an avid reader of my blog, merely reinforces my opinion that an opportunity was wasted, and not by me. Announcing in advance my impending closure would have been too easy, and only necessary if my primary motive were to milk this for all it's worth financially.

Mistress honestly believes in teaching real lessons in this world, an endeavor made easier now that this has shifted to diversion for me. When I was ready to slow down, it had to change right there and then. Not giving notice may seem "unprofessional" - one reason I no longer define myself under that rubric. When it comes to a craft as intimate as this, the pressure to act "professionally" has always rubbed me the wrong way. To expect someone to act as if the responsibilities involved are as straight-forward and impersonal as the duties of, say, an accountant or dentist is slightly ridiculous. What we do is intensely personal, as tied-in as it is to our moods and passions, as well as our physical bodies.

It does make me laugh that I have to spell this out: my closure is not an ingenious marketing ploy, despite the wave of inquiries I have received ever since! Though I regret any missed opportunities to be served by worthy true believers, surely there are others out there to worship in my place. I am content with my circle. Kinky thoughts and blessings to all. . .

The Other Boleyn Girl & Beowulf

2008-03-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

I saw "The Other Boleyn Girl" last night, which is loosely based on the life of Mary Boleyn, sister to Anne Boleyn. Anne is the more famous of the two, having been the short-lived second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of Elizabeth I before she was beheaded. Historically overlooked, Mary in fact also had a relationship with King Henry. She was his mistress (in the more common meaning of the word) before her sister's relationship with him started.

The film portrayed Mary as the younger and more virtuous sister, whereas Anne was scheming and downright nasty. My curiousity was peaked - I wanted to know how accurate it was historically. I did a bit of research to find out the real story (yes I used wiki. If you have a problem with that, do your own research and get back to me!).

True to the film, it appears Mary was considered the more attractive of the two while Anne was the more ambitious. Mary apparently did give herself freely to Henry, whereas Anne held him at bay until he agreed to divorce his wife and marry her. But what I found most fascinating, and in the end disappointing, was an important aspect of Mary's character which was not just brushed over but twisted to its exact opposite.

For Mary was not the feckless virginal younger sister depicted in the film. Rather, she was the older, more sexually experienced sister. Before she ever became the lover of Henry, she had already had a taste of royalty as the mistress of French King Francis I, who later described her as "a great whore, the most infamous of all."

After their affair ended, she embarked on several others in the French court, the scandal of which eventually led to her dismissal. In my mind, the only reason to omit this would be to satisfy a rather limited view of acceptable feminine behavior for a sympathic female protaganist, being that it is Mary we are supposed to be rooting for in this film.

Both the film and historical interpretation agree that Mary avoided the pursuit of politics, the entanglements of which proved so deadly for her younger sister. And historians also seem to agree that her final marriage to a commoner was likely a union born out of true love, as it made no logical sense in terms of familial upward mobility and caused her to be disowned and outcast.

Perhaps she proved the wisest of them all, to figure out what really mattered in this life: love, pleasure and simplicity. Though she faded into obscurity, she alone lived out the remainder of her days in peace, while her only brother and sister were executed for treason. It's just too bad that the film did not have the guts to show her in all her glory, as a wise and sexually adventurous woman. It would have only been hotter!

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On another movie note, I never got around to commenting on Beowulf after it came out, so let me do so now. This movie impressed and surprised me with its femme power elements, I ended up seeing it twice (once in IMAX 3D which was so-so, once regular 3D which was much better). When I saw comic book writer extraordinaire Neil Gaiman on the credits as co-screenwriter, I understood why this had surpassed my expectations and transcended the genre conventions of a typical macho action adventure.

To understand what I found so intriguing about Beowulf, allow me to indulge in a tangent...

I had an English professor for undergrad who liked to have us watch television shows like I Love Lucy and movies like Ordinary People, then reinterpret them from alternative points of view. Basically turning the perspective upside or sideways, so that the antagonists could be seen in a sympathetic light or the peripheral characters came to the forefront. In Europe, I also studied the "histoire des mentalités" or history of world views, which utilized anthropological tools such as statistics and church records in an attempt to understand the marginalized, the covered up and the previously unspoken for.

OK, now back to the movie. Watching Beowulf unfold, the beginning of the story arc proceeded uneventfully and I anticipated an entertaining if unchallenging re-telling of the old Nordic tale. Then the film did something very clever. It shifted. It basically told another version of the warrior's epic poem from a point of view which included the women, and which acknowledged the failings of being human (or in this case, being a man).

I am an unabashed Angelina Jolie fan, and thought she was perfect casting for the ultimate seducer of men. I felt sorry for these hapless men, as they bent to her will and had their lives ruined for it!

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Ah yes, the fantasy of woman as temptress, as the downfall of man. It is a fun one to play with. Sadly, in the case of Anne Boleyn, her inability to provide Henry with a male heir led him to feel he had been bewitched and betrayed. Her seduction of the king - though historically huge, leading as it did to the end of England's ties to the Catholic Church and the establishment of Protestantism as the state religion - was no match for the violent machinations of medieval men. No wonder her daughter stayed the Virgin Queen!

Mistress & Her Delightful Stable

2008-02-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while since I blogged and in the meantime you may have noticed some relatively big changes, namely the closing of my stable to newcomers! Yes, this is a good thing for me, reserving my attentions exclusively for my tried and true. As the sixth anniversary of my career as a session domina was fast approaching (June), I realized that it was time to shift gears, settle back, and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I have acquired an amazing collection of slaves since embarking on this journey as a femme domme. I continue to thrive on these ongoing dynamics of power exchange and friendship. Yet being the renaissance woman that I am, the itch to expand myself further in other areas of my life has grown stronger as well.

Mistress loves to have her cake and eat it too. Thus I have kept what I love most about this craft - my lovely submissives who serve me and know me so well - while trimming away the aspects which felt most like "work" - screening and evaluating new applicants, as well as the marketing and other miscellanea that comes with it.

No, I'm not one to utter the "R" word! Not in the foreseeable future. Why throw out the baby with the bath water? I have a fetish for having my own circle of gentle men, and I see no reason to dismiss those who have delighted me with their servitude.

It's just that Mistress no longer sees herself as a professional at this. That doesn't mean my ethics or boundaries have changed. Those have always been based upon what I desire as a dominant woman and what I see as the proper place of a submissive in my life, not on any industry standards.

Now I see this as a rewarding diversion, and I can't imagine giving it up. On the contrary, as of late I have been enjoying an expansion of my explorations to women's play parties. That has been a beautiful surprise - how fitting it feels to balance that masculine energy with the sweet submission of a slavegirl, or two...

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On another note:

Occasionally, I receive an email from someone stating that they are underage i.e. under 18 years old. I appreciate you seeking me out for advice and doubly appreciate you understanding that I cannot answer these messages.

What a Party! Bay Area Women of Color BDSM Photo Project

2008-02-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending a reception at Stormy Leather for the Bay Area Women of Color BDSM Photo Project. Check out the article in the SF Weekly here. That's my lovely cohort Mistress Victoria in a sexy pin-up shot. [Don't forget she is available to top, bottom or switch in session with me!]

All of Ms. Heart's efforts really paid off with this fabulous event. Though the basement of Stormy did make for a packed space, there was some great people-watching to be had.

Heavily pierced and tattooed suicide girls, super skinny latex-clad fetish models, elegant pro dommes, saucily-dressed lifestyle players, gimped out male subs and kinky photographers all mingled, the heat of everyone's bodies practically steaming up the place. The wine and chatter flowed freely, as people perused the exhibit and took in a burlesque show and Madame Butterfly's shibari demo.

I ran into my friend Andrew Morgan, who is the founding photographer for the project. As we chatted, I glanced down at the laminated badge he wore which identified him as being one of the project participants. Oh la la! His badge was actually a photo of me from the hips down in black leather and stockings, sitting crossed-legged while gripping a studded belt.

I found out later that he had a few different photos of me playing on the projector upstairs, including one of my bare bottom in garters leaning over a stool :) It's a nice pic, but one that Mistress has not added to my galleries just yet. I'm afraid it may be too hot for my subs to handle!

We joked about my disembodied approach to photos - necessary, of course, since I do not show my face. I let my friends know, with sarcastic pride, that those were my legs on the front of the printed program (alongside Mistress Victoria and 2 other ladies' images).

It's ironic, I took more than my fair share of women's studies classes where we critically examined the objectification and compartmentalization of women's separate body parts in art and advertisements. And now I find myself doing it to myself. Oh well, Mistress has to present herself in some fashion!

Kudos to Ms. Heart for growing the Women of Color BDSM Photo Project to what it is today. I remember her very first event years ago, when I loaned one of my submissives to help serve. This last time, she extended a personal invitation to me, buttering me up by letting me know she'd appreciate my "eye candy." Oh yes, sometimes flattery will get me there!

Happy Valentine's Day...

Women in Movies

2008-01-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

"Watching a fossil like Shayla LaVeaux makes me grateful that former Vivid girl Savannah blew her head off while still young and beautiful. No porn girl should work past 30."

That's a quote from Adam Film World Guide's 2007 Adult Film & Video Directory. Can you believe in this day and age some two-bit reviewer can get away with such shite? It really is pathetic more than anything else. Like the dying gasps of a fish out of water. No wonder I usually just look at the pictures in those magazines, with crap text like that!

While definitely nothing quite incendiary as what's quoted above, I have read reviews of mainstream movies that came off as nothing more than petty femme-bashing rather than critical analysis. One of Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider saying that she strutted around like she thought she was so great (so what?). Or one review of Original Sin, another Jolie feature, which I thought was one of the best portrayals of a woman caught in the web of her own overpowering sexuality, which described it as silly romance novel trite -this time by a woman reviewer. Bias against the femme perspective - eg romance=derogatory - is not limited to men.

But I am gratified to see how many more powerful roles there are for women in film and TV these days. There was such a dearth when I was growing up. It was all about the fetishization of women as victims back then, screaming and tripping in their stilettos. Or two-dimensional, decorative accessories for the men. Besides Meryl Streep, it was pretty much a mini Dark Ages for femmes in cinema during the 80s and early 90s.

Look at films from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Women were often stronger, more opinionated and sexually respected, even if more restrained within gender roles. I remember reading how Julia Roberts during her heyday was the first woman the studios could rely on to carry a movie, whereas actresses like Betty Davis and Joan Crawford were consistent box office superstars in their day.

Maybe I sound a bit out of touch, but I can't stand all the rutting that goes on in Hollywood films today. It just comes off as embarrassing for the actors. Why not just leave it to porn?

Maybe not everyone compartmentalizes like me. But when I want to be turned on in prelude to actual play, I watch XXX-rated scenes. When I want to think, follow plot and conversation, and be stimulated in a more cerebral or emotional way, I watch non-porn fare.

I do love the sizzling sexual tension and double entendres of older films, before everything could be so spelled -- and acted -- out. It's that same sexual tension I can play with in scene. Sometimes repression can be sexy. The unspoken, or the hinted at. Toying with that excitement til you feel like you could burst at the seams. Old-fashioned cinema is like tease and denial.

I've even heard that sex scenes have affected the average height of actresses, because one has to consider how compatible they will look lying horizontally beneath their acting partners.

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I have been enjoying the new Terminator series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. When they mentioned the Singularity, the Baghavad Gita and the Manhattan Project -- all in the third episode -- I knew I was seeing something unique on broadcast television: a show which didn't dumb down the big questions.

I may not agree with its seemingly luddite take on the prospect of an emerging machine intelligence, but the questions it raises so dramatically make for extremely compelling viewing. For all the hopes I had for the new Bionic Woman, it looks like the Terminator series is the best current offering within the grrrl power genre.

Though I will never forget how inspiring Linda Hamilton was in T2 with her badass muscles and smoky voice - one of my fellow domme friends says watching her was her first inspiration to work out - Lena Headey creates her own formidable presence as the killer mama of the "savior of mankind."

Interview on Sadistic Mistress

2008-01-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

I was pleased to be interviewed for Sadistic-Mistress.com.
Check it out here.

Or if that's not working, read below...

Q: Mistress, would You kindly tell us a little about your background and how you became involved in Domination?
A: I entered the field in 2002 after a long-simmering interest in sadomasochism, gender-bending and femme power. I had been leading a life of straight-laced business with plenty of hedonism on the side. Yet I felt the world was changing and a certain innocence had been lost. Mindless indulgences and impersonal work no longer held their sway. I felt an urge to connect with the darker elements of my sexuality as well as establish a creative presence. It was during these tumultuous times that I found liberation from the last ties to convention which held me back from assuming this cherished role.

Q: Mistress, what advice would you give to slaves who wish to serve you?
A: Read my website. Get to know me by taking in my words. Be honest with yourself and ask "What is it that I'm really looking for?" If the answer is genuine submission to a superior woman, then I am interested.

Q: Mistress, what are your favourite types of session?
A: I am what I call a total immersion dominant, and my favourite sessions reflect my philosophy. I do not believe in breaking out of role at any point - whether on the phone, in email or in person. Of course, there will be times when we need to break out of scene, like when checking in after a safeword has been called. Yet the fundamentals of the Dominant woman/deferential man equation must be maintained. This means no dropping of titles or taking on an overly familiar manner, even when play is over. I believe this maintains the integrity of the power dynamic, which after all is the basis of our relationship!

Q: Mistress, do you attend any clubs relating to BDSM/Fetish lifestyle?
A: I'm more of a behind-closed-doors player. Granted, the very nature of professional domination means I am in the public sphere. Yet I see kinky play as a supremely private experience and it works best for me that way. But public events do have their place, and have had a definite impact on my journey. For a number of years, I flirted on the edge of the lifestyle, frequenting the local pervy danceclub here in San Francisco - Bondage-a-go-go. I enjoyed the hard-edged sexiness, the music and the twisted exhibitionism on display. Though there was a special area to do scenes, it existed only on the periphery of my awareness. That all changed one night when I met a beautiful woman clad in high fetish. We flirted and then played. I was completely mesmerized. Later on, I found out she was a dominatrix. That was a pivotal moment for me - understanding what that role really meant. That was when I stepped through the looking glass.

Q: Mistress, What do you prefer to wear during sessions?
A: I was a ballet dancer throughout my childhood, and have always loved how costumes can transform and transport us. The two styles I like best are high fetish - black vinyl, leather and latex - and business outfits, because of their natural association with power. I also enjoy creative scenarios which call for unusual attire. It's great to mix it up, be a bit of a chameleon, and have fun imagining being a sexy secret agent or undercover superheroine with all these different looks.

Q: Mistress, please could you describe your style of dominance?
A: Elegant yet passionate, a melding of the heart and mind. It truly is all about the connection, finding that link between kinky souls. The rest follows from there. I do like to keep my submissives on their toes, guessing what's next and surprising them with changes in direction during scene. It's pleasure but so much more. I believe each encounter should be a lesson as well. Sadism is key, be it psychological, physical or mixture of the two. Subjugation, control, restraint, interrogation, service, humiliation, exposure and pain are powerful tools. I am not interested in blindly imposing my will, or forgoing all rewards. Everything is done for a reason.

Q: Mistress, do you also indulge in other activities such as phone domination, email/online, training?
A: I am primarily an in-person domina, though I have enjoyed phone training via my Keen.com page.

Q: Mistress, what are the things you most like and dislike in a slave?
A: I like slaves who appreciate the boundaries I establish. I dislike slaves who believe they are exempt from my rules.

Q: Mistress, what are your favourite gifts from a slave?
A: I appreciate the gift of my slave's submission and suffering. The gift of their pride laid bare as they kneel before me. I consider it a truly courageous act, especially because we live in a world where men are always supposed to be so "alpha."

Q: Mistress, what advice would you give to a novice who has never visited a Mistress before?
A: Do your homework. Err on the side of caution. Have a clear idea of what it is you are seeking, yet at the same time keep an open mind and leave your expectations at the door.

Q: Mistress, do you own any 24/7 slaves?
A: I am involved in kink in my private life, but do not believe in 24/7 total power exchange. I believe in free will and personal responsibility outside of playtime.

Q: Mistress, what about those slaves looking for a long term serious commitment of slavery to you. What would be your requirements of such a slave?
A: I thrive on long-term interactions. In my experience, a well-suited Dominance/submission dynamic only gets better with time, as the extent of the connection is built and progresses. A large part of my stable have been seeing me for the past four years or more. I welcome new applicants who are serious about training under me, especially those seeking ongoing servititude.

Q: Mistress may you please tell us how we may obtain more details about you and how to serve you?
A: My website is www.Xia-BDSM.com. I advise seekers to fill out the submission questionnaire on my site and send it along with a short introduction to me at XiaVox@gmail.com. When it looks like there is potential for a rewarding energy exchange, I conduct a telephone interview. I then invite a suitable submissive to serve me during an initial, evaluatory session.

Grab the Bull By the Horns Free Will & Slave Games

2008-01-12T11:14:00.001-08:00

The new year brings not just resolutions for Mistress. I see it as a time to reflect on the meaning and symbolism behind the kinky play that is so much a part of my life. It's gratifying to feel a sense of progression in my philosophy, with the greater clarity achieved through active self examination.

Readers who have been with me for some time may recall that the topic of my own spiritual explorations has creeped into more than a few of my posts. Learning to open my heart to people and unwind my own ego attachments were powerful experiences, and I believe these steps were important to my development.

I now find myself re-balancing that receptive energy with a dive into a more assertive mode. I've come to believe more than ever in free will: the power that each individual holds, and how every one of us must make a choice whether to be passive or take life by the horns.

So how does my reinvigorated indeterminism fit with my role as dominatrix, with its games of enslavement? How can I espouse personal responsibility seemingly in the face of its abdication? The answer lies in that it is a game we are playing, no more and no less.

By definition, a game is the playful, peaceful way of learning about a thing. It gives one the ability to consummate a desire without it being anything as serious as a life or death matter.

It also is a means of release. For there is no doubt in my mind that the urge to submit and suffer, to be made to kneel, crawl and beg, to feel the hot burn of humiliation or the the cold hold of possession - these are very real. For many of us, there must be a catharsis.

Our modern society has developed outlets so that we may continue to challenge ourselves, test what we're made of, and feel closer to that primal self which resides within each of us. Kinky play is one such outlet. It does not require that you jump out of a plane or ingest some drug, though it can be equally as intense in its effects.

For me, the play is fun exactly because it is make-believe. I do not really want to own a slave. Not in the sense that I want to rule over another who has no rights of his own and no power to object. The consent of my "victim" permits me to indulge and enjoy my sadism and my desire for control.

Of course, there are those who dream of a 24/7 total power exchange. Just as there are those who flock to the various dogmas of the world, some think it's better to be told what to do. They abandon free will for the elixir of assurance in the face of the great mystery; the unanswerable Why of it all.

In my experience, play works best when it's an embracing of the truth rather than an escape from reality. When we have the courage and liberation to run into the heart of darkness, feel the fear and the dirtiness as well as the ecstasy and the exaltation, wrestling happily with the demons which are our shadow.

Yes, invoking our deepest-held and most taboo fantasies is one way of grabbing onto the bull horns of life. Then we gain not only pleasure but something else: an invisible badge of our twisted journey, marking what we have seen and earned.

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Speaking of exercising free will, my dear friend Mistress Victoria has recently left The Gates to session independently. She joined me last week and we had wickedly sadistic fun with a lovely submissive. We have great scene chemistry, especially for heavier play involving humiliation, bondage, CBT, NT and corporal. Feel free to get in touch with me if interested in a double whupping!

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I recently updated the password to my special gallery. Those in my stable may contact me for the new one. Have a wonderful weekend...

Advice to a novice seeker

2008-01-03T00:18:00.000-08:00

Below is something I just wrote up in reply to a sincere novice applicant who recently sent in his completed submission questionnaire. I thought it succinctly eludicated some important points for novices interested in serving me, so I thought I'd put it out there for all the rest.

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. . . I understand that you are a total novice, in terms of actual real-life D/s play. I applaud you for taking the courageous first step towards fulfilling your innermost desires!

Now a few important points for you to consider. Firstly, with whomever you begin training with, remember to leave your expectations at the door. No doubt, you have been fantasizing about this for a long time. An entire universe may have been constructed in your head. In my past experiences with total novices, it sometimes seems that these prefabricated notions can actually become obstacles to surrending oneself in the here and now. So something to keep in mind as you prepare to meet the Mistress.

You mentioned attending a few munches, but I take it you have not played with anyone you met there? So you have decided to begin your training with a professional dominatrix rather than attempt a "lifestyle" relationship. Since you have no experience in either, I would expect you may have some confusion as to the differences. There are many, and they can be subtle. Some within the lifestyle community, a fair number of whom seem reflexively dismissive of pro dommes, would say that the difference is that those who do this for a living are "pretenders."

Of course, I see it in a more complex light. For one, I enjoy the well-defined boundaries of a session-based dynamic. And while I do consider myself a genuine dominant, my bandwidth is such that my training of new submissives is limited to session time. Remote sessions or other forms of training may also be possible, within my time constraints and with appropriate tribute. I note this in regards to your desire to have assignments and duties between meetings.

If this all sounds suitable to your submissive aspirations, feel free to follow up with me. . .

Storming into 2008

2007-12-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

2008 is sneaking up on us, isn't it? Mistress can hardly believe that the year is almost over! Can you believe I haven't even made New Year's plans? This year I think I'll forgo the big parties. Perhaps head into the woods and enjoy the quiet peace that only Mother Nature can provide.

Though some may think it a bit contrived, I do look at this time to contemplate where I have been and where I'd like to go in this life's journey. Year-end reviews are not so much in the form of resolutions for me, at least not in the sense of hard and fast rules that I hope to enforce upon myself. It's more of a self-examination and a brain-storming session to come up with new goals to focus on and areas to explore.

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I had a conversation today with a prospective submissive about a particular fetish which I have yet to indulge in, but which has intrigued me for some time. We spoke of the thrill of playing on that psychological edge, where both top and bottom players are challenged, so that the energy itself takes on an almost uncomfortable quality. I know such scenes are not for everyone. Yet the thought of it most definitely gave Mistress a rush! I will refrain from writing further about this unnamed fetish until I have tested the waters a bit more...

Though I will say that, within reason (which of course, is subjective), I am open to many kinds of play scenarios. Equally as important as the fetish being indulged in, is the mental exchange. I have found that most smart people who have a sense of humor and a level of self-awareness indicative of someone who works on him/herself are great "partners in crime" in the dungeon. So much of what goes on is above and beyond the physical acts. Bottom line for me: it's all about the mind fuck.

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2008 will be my first New Year as an independent dominatrix. I spent this past year transitioning. I have been so very grateful for the continued support and amazing connections I have enjoyed with my stable of submissives, as well as the new faces (and bodies and minds!) who have humbled themselves before me.

Now I feel it's time to heighten my presence within the international community of serious Mistresses. I am also contemplating moving my site url and email to a more uniform "xiavox" address, especially since the dash in my website and the dot in my email address can get a bit confusing.

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Happy New Year all you lovely kinksters! Peace, blessings and wicked times. . .

~Mistress Xia Vox~

fyi- special gallery updated today

Happy Holidays sluts!

2007-12-21T21:20:00.000-08:00

I have just had a wonderful streak of sweet n saucy sissy sluts (try saying that 3 times fast!). Wickedly good fun whipping my lovely pussy-boys into proper shape as servants and servicers ;-) It all has been quite inspiring. It does feel like I'm coming back to my roots.

Gender-bending, wielding the power of the phallus and slut training have been dear to my heart from the start of my journey as a dominant. Sadly, I more recently felt compelled to shy away from this strong passion of mine because of too many negative encounters. I still love the imagery and symbolism of strap-ons, but dislike how it attracts inquiries of a decidedly unseemly caliber.

No doubt, harness and dildo can be straight-to-the-point tools in the sodomizing of man by woman. But it needn't be so simplistic and lacking in subtlety. When I say I love this, it does not mean I want to bugger every Tom, Dick and Harry who happens to cross my path!

To me, the term slut training is so much more than a mere synonym for strap-on play. It's an entire way of seeing the D/s dynamic - one where the submissive is a slave to his own lust, and that is the key by which Mistress controls him. Chained to his wayward libido, the slave is at the mercy of the Woman Who Knows. Yes, the woman who knows the truth of his depravity, and who can match the dirtiest of his thoughts and take the twist even further.

Happy holidays sluts! Mistress looks forward to more blissful perversions in 2008...

New Gallery - Andrew Morgan

2007-12-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Andrew Morgan Gallery

Andrew Morgan Shoot #1

2007-11-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

Agent Xia

2007-10-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

More from David Perry. He's awesome!

Samurai Xia

2007-10-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

A killer pic from a recent shoot. Very Kill Bill/Sin City/Underworld. More to come soon. . .

~Mistress

Special Gallery Updated

2007-10-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

To those in my stable-

Added a few more pics to the password protected gallery.

Enjoy!

~Mistress

Ava Noir ~ Xia Vox

2007-10-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

I was both surprised and incredibly flattered to find a note in my inbox entitled "Apprentice" from Ms. Ava Noir. She had read my Comrades-in-Arms page, where I encourage like-minded women to train under me, and she let me know she was interested in becoming my protege.

As some of you may know, Ms. Noir has been practicing the craft of professional domination for the past two years. So many others with her level of experience would never think of approaching a fellow domina, but Ava had the guts and humility to know that such a relationship could prove fruitful and rewarding for us both. She let me know of her desire to delve deeper into certain skill sets including bondage, CBT, electroplay, CP, and play piercing.

Above and beyond activity particulars, I believe there is also much to glean from observing how an experienced dominant works with those intangible qualities of presence and energy exchange. And as for me, I am already inspired by Ava's enthusiasm and motivation. Indeed, I think the two of us together will prove to be a force to be reckoned with, and a whole hell of a lot of fun too!

So I am pleased to announce the opportunity to serve Ms. Ava Noir and Mistress Xia Vox together. Powerful, beautiful, crafty and twisted. Of the Asian persuasion and dominant to the core. Enjoy the flexing of our muscles -- both mental and physical -- as we explore your submission.

Those interested in seeing the two of us in a double session may inquire by sending me an email: Xia.BDSM@gmail.com. If you have not served me before, please take the time to fill out my submission questionnaire.

Seeing More of Me

2007-09-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

New images of Mistress should be a sweet salve for my diminished writing (see last post). I just finished up one shoot and have at least a couple more lined up. They will be added to my main site shortly. In the meantime, here is picture of me relaxing on my throne. Enjoy...

Oh Xia, Wherefore Art Thou Online?

2007-09-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

I know some of you are going through withdrawal with me not posting lately, but I really do have to take it easy with the computer. I am realizing overuse of this most convenient and ubiquitous device can be quite disastrous for me. So it looks like I'll be extending my break a bit longer - don't expect much for at least the next month or so. Thankfully, my arm strain has not affected my topping abilities! Be well...

~Mistress Xia

End of Summer

2007-08-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've got to lay off the keyboard to avoid further strain on my arm - I've been writing a lot for this project I'm working on. I'll have to forgo any more entries until after Burning Man. Take care and have a great Labor Day (it's the end of summer already!). I'll be back blogging in September.

From Russia With Love

2007-08-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this link, an article in Russian using the cyrillic alphabet which features several photos from my site. At first perplexed, I ran it through Google's translator and got this rough translation.

There are many idiomatic phrases which failed to cross over -- and make for funny, almost poetic reading. But from what I can make out, the author seems to recounting her experience working at houses of domination in New York.

Why my pictures are used is a bit of a mystery, but I do appreciate the caption beneath each which identifies me.

I'll take it as a compliment that my images are so iconic they can represent the Femme Domme aesthetic in some random article published on the other side of the world!

Popularity, Exclusivity and Taking the Leap

2007-08-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

I am a sucker for analytics. Like Alexa, which allows you to see how websites rank in terms of overall traffic on the internet. Since I launched it in '03, www.Xia-BDSM.com has consistently been in the top 500,000 of all sites online. In the month or so that I had it down recently, it decreased to 830,000. Now that it's back up, it's climbing ever higher and is currently in the area of the top 750,000.

So part of me was happy to see the traffic go down, losing all these casual viewers who have probably never sessioned with me and never will. I am by nature a private person, and in that sense a lower profile appeals to me.

Predictably for me ;-) I am a bit torn. We are all taught from a young age that popularity is important and desirable. We are witness to the darker side of too much attention, with the growing feeding frenzy invasiveness of being a Hollywood celebrity. Yet people still run towards it, like moths to a flame.

I suppose that's why I've always tried to have my cake and eat it too. By creating a web presence that's a force to be reckoned with, while at the same time hiding my face and keeping my number unlisted.

Who knows what the future holds. Moving towards more exclusivity may be the natural path. Perhaps one day it will make sense to have my entire site be password-protected, as the amazing Mistress Simone Kross has done.

Earlier in my career, it was much more impactful for me -- in ways both positive and negative -- to be mentioned in an online venue or receive some other public sign of my high demand. Yet after the novelty of such attention wore off, I found such matters to be of far less significance to me.

I've become less tossed about in the swirls and eddies of group opinion, retaining my flexibility while gaining greater stability. I have felt myself move closer to true authenticity as a domina as I've come into my own. It has been a process of building up what I thought I needed to bolster my case, then letting all that became extraneous fall away.

I am a planner, yet I have learned in life to allow the organic to unfold. Admittedly, it was challenging to have so much stripped away. It was time for those last few scraps of security blanket to be put down. One by one they fell: my over-reliance on strap-on skills, my clinging to The Gates, my ego addiction, even my use of private fantasies and relationships to color my view during scene.

I realized that these were all barriers to being present in the here and now with my submissives. My deepest fear was that if I let them all go, I would no longer enjoy playing with them. I did not entirely trust myself, and thought I needed to resort to these mental slights of hand.

Then there came a point where I knew that if I couldn't take pleasure in this craft without fooling myself in one way or another, it was no longer worth pursuing. I took the leap. And I flew!

By being brutally honest with myself, I find that I am now surrounded by people of the highest caliber and revelling further in the sweet fruits of my femme power. Faith works wonders.