“Wearing them makes me feel better about myself.”
-new caller talking about his panties

Posted by Vixen as Quote Book at 10:30 PM CST

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From Iafrica:
Sex, soccer and the dream
” Rustenburg prostitute Tshepiso Khoza* is hoping to get off the streets with the money she makes from the Soccer World Cup later this year.

“I am looking at pounds and dollars, I want to quit after the World Cup,” said the 23-year-old, who plies her trade on Heystek Street — Rustenburg’s red-light district.

The 15 women who work on the street are united in their hope that 2010 will bring them gold. Before the final draw last year all eagerly waited to hear which teams would be playing in Rustenburg, so they could charge those fans their home currency and exchange it on the black market.”

There’s no breaking headlines in this story. But I thought the article was interesting points. I didn’t know prostitutes charged in their client’s home currency. That’s clever. But why would they have to exchange it on the black market? Maybe they don’t have bank accounts? I would think they could even exchange it with street money changers but maybe that’s considered the black market?

—

From the Minnesota Independent:
Franken bill to give servicewomen access to emergency contraception
“Sens. Al Franken and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have sponsored a bipartisan bill that would require military medical facilities to include emergency contraceptives among medications available to servicewomen.

A statement from mid-December at Franken’s web site says current Department of Defense policy allows military hospitals and clinics to carry the contraceptive, also known as the “morning-after pill,” but it’s not required — which means servicewomen don’t have the same access to it as the general public.

Hopefully this one will get passed.

—

From Pam’s House Blend:
Visit the Blend for exclusive legal analysis of Federal Prop 8 trial by NCLR
“You’ll want to stick right here on the Blend for coverage of the federal Prop 8 trial because we have great resources for you that you won’t find anywhere else.

(snip)

But the big news is that we have just secured a nice exclusive for you — daily analysis of the trial from someone eminently qualified to do so — and is at the trial — Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). Daily wrap-ups will go up in the hours after court end of day.

(snip)

And we have another exclusive for you — at the end of the week Blenders will have the opportunity to ask questions about the trial’s first week in a CoverItLive chat with Shannon Minter or Kate Kendell, the Executive Director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (depending on who’s available as we work out scheduling).”

That’s a pretty cool exclusive. I’m feeling pretty cynical about gays being able to legally marry in CA. But I’ve been reading news for the past hour which puts me in a pessimistic mood. If only one of these cases would get seen by the Supreme Court and the justices would decide in favor of gay marriage. A girl can dream?

—

From the Telegraph:
Town’s mayor caught on camera stealing women’s underwear
“Stafford, 59, was seen walking into the woman’s bedroom, rifling through her drawers, and selecting a pair of knickers he wanted to wear.

The bachelor, who had twice been elected mayor of Preesall and Knott End, near Fleetwood, Lancs, then performed a sex act before leaving the building.

(snip)

The woman who made the recording was one of three Stafford targeted between January 1 and June 26 last year.

She decided to install a hidden camera after noticing that some of her underwear was disappearing.”

I have several clients who tell me about stealing their partners’ panties. (I blogged about it here.) I can’t help but think that the man should have just purchased panties from several local mistresses. But maybe that would lose the thrill of stealing them?

—

From the LA Times:
Male prostitution is Nevada’s newest legal profession
“Brothel owner Bobbi Davis got the go-ahead Tuesday to hire what her website cheekily calls “a few good men.”

Her Shady Lady Ranch is searching for “service-oriented” guys willing to become Nevada’s first legal male sex workers.

(snip)

A county board’s vote Tuesday affirming that Davis could offer “shady men” to her clientele followed months of rancorous debate among the state’s legal brothel community.

(snip)

After announcing her plans this summer, Davis and attorney Allen Lichtenstein succeeded where the better-known Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss, had failed. In 2005, Fleiss announced that she was moving to Pahrump, in southern Nye County, in hopes of creating a “stud farm.” She opened a Laundromat instead.”

I think this is a great idea. Will the ladies go for it? Several of my (male) clients certainly would. The article mentions how several parties involved are worried about the homosexual angle. Really?! Sometimes it’s crazy that in 2010 people are still getting hung up on people of the same gender having sex.

Posted by Vixen as News at 11:13 PM CST

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From this gallery. This pic stood out-great angle, good use of simple bondage, gorgeous hair.

Posted by Vixen as Sexy Sensations at 11:30 PM CST

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There’s a part in the movie Food, Inc. where Eric Schlosser says there’s stories about food contamination repeatedly in the news. Today I came across three. Since I just reviewed the movie yesterday I figured I’d make the News Round Up a food edition.

From Grist:
Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco
“In case you missed it last week, The New York Times ran an excellent article on a South Dakota company called Beef Products Inc., which makes a hamburger filler product that ends up in 70 percent of burgers in the United States.

To make a long story short: Beef Products buys the cheapest, least desirable beef on offer—fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, which are notoriously rife with pathogens like E. coli 0157 and antibiotic-resistant salmonella. It sends the scraps through a series of machines, grinds them into a paste, separates out the fat, and laces the substance with ammonia to kill pathogens.”

I did miss this last week but the movie interviewed a guy that worked at BPI. Ammonia in food?! Anything called “pink slime” can’t be healthy.

—

From ABC Action News:
Thirsty? Bacteria linked to feces found on soda fountains
“If you’re chugging a soda from a fast food joint, you may want to put it down and read this.

A team of microbiologists from Hollins University found that 48% of the sodas they tested from fast food soda fountains had coliform bacteria, according to Tom Laskawy, a media and technology professional and blogger for grist.org.

Coliform is typically fecal in origin.

On top of that, the study found that most of the bacteria were resistant to antibiotics.”

Yes this is gross but to play devil’s advocate for a minute-Couldn’t one argue that many surfaces in high traffic areas could be breeding grounds for bacteria?

—

From Raw Story:
17,000 potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under obscure law
“Of some 84,000 chemicals being used commercially in the United States, some 20 percent — or 17,000 — are kept secret not only from the public, but from medical professionals, state regulators and even emergency responders, according to a report at the Washington Post.

And the reason for this potentially harmful lack of openness? Profit.

A 1976 law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, mandates that manufacturers report to the Environmental Protection Agency any new chemicals they intend to market, but manufacturers can request that a chemical be kept secret if disclosure “could harm their bottom line,” the Washington Post reports.

(snip)

And chemical makers may be abusing their privilege under the law. According to the EPA, in recent years 95 percent of manufacturers’ reports of new chemicals have made some request for secrecy. Ten of the secret chemicals are used in children’s products.”

What, big business abusing its privileges and keeping information secret?!? Say it ain’t so!

Posted by Vixen as News at 10:25 PM CST

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I finally watched the movie Food, Inc. tonight. Wow, what a great film.

From the Food, Inc. site:
“In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.”

Mr. Radical has extreme food allergies. Thankfully we’re able to maintain his health through diet. We eat about 90% organic. It’s not cheap or easy but his weird health problems have gone away. Because of his allergy I’ve gotten quite the education on where food comes from. I knew a lot of the information in the film but there were parts that completely shocked me. Here’s some highlights:

A chicken farmer named Carole Morison was interviewed for the film. She shares that she is allergic to antibiotics and can’t take them because they are fed to her chickens through their feed. The antibiotics in the feed passes to the chickens which then pass on to humans.

Barbara Kowalcyk’s two year old son died from eating a hamburger infected with E-coli. After his death she became a food safety advocate. She’s working to get a law passed named after her son. Kevin’s Law basically gives the USDA the power to shut down factories that have repeat offenses. They currently can’t do that?! Later in the film she’s asked what kind of diet her family eats now. She declined to answer the question because of so called veggie libel laws.

Now I know Monsanto is one of the really evil corporations. But there’s a scene in the movie where a farmer discovers he’s on a Monsanto “black list”. These are farmers who don’t “cooperate” with Monsanto and are seen as “problem farmers”. It was like something out of a Mafia movie.

It’s not cheap or easy to eat an organic diet. You’ll have a large grocery bill and make a lot of your food from scratch. Honestly, it’s often a pain in the ass. Sometimes I just want to go out and have a burger and fries and not have to think about it. But eating organic does feel much healthier.

One of my heroes Julia Butterfly Hill said, “The most revolutionary thing you can do is decide what to put at the end of your fork.” Her point basically sums up this entire film.

Eric Schlosser co-produced the film and is featured throughout. His book Fast Food Nation is a must read.

In a nutshell: Watch this film.

Posted by Vixen as Reviews at 11:35 PM CST

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Some years I turn off my phone for my birthday. But if I’m having a mellow birthday I’ll leave it on. Today was like that. To celebrate my bday I stayed home and played with yarn all day. It was wonderful. The Fantastic Foot Slut called and we had a nice chat while I knit a sleeve for Mr. Radical’s latest sweater. FFS couldn’t call during the holidays and was so happy I picked up. So was I.

A couple of years ago I connected with a client because of my birthday. The client was a tough regular. I’ll call him Bored Man.

BM always acts like he bored and irritated. He likes me to talk constantly. If I pause to take a sip of water he’ll complain. “Hello? Are you still there?” he’ll say though he has to know I haven’t hung up.

He never seems satisfied with the fantasy. His is an easy fantasy-some crossdressing with a dominance storyline. BM continually edits the fantasy. He doesn’t like to talk much but will change details over and over. I try to tell a good fantasy but he never seems satisfied. At the end of every call I always wonder why he calls me back. He does though so I’m doing something right.

For my birthday that year Mr. Radical and I had celebrated earlier in the day. When evening rolled around I figured I’d turn on my phone. When BM called I was almost tempted to fake an excuse on why I couldn’t talk. Instead I decided to chat.

BM sounded more depressed than his usual bored and annoyed mood. I asked my usual “how are you doing” opener expecting to get his usual nondescript reply.

Instead he told me that it was his birthday. BM added that he was alone so decided to call me. I told him it was my birthday too. “Really?” he asked, sounding hopeful. I told him yes it was.

Usually I don’t tell clients it’s my birthday because it weirds them out. To me it’s just a twenty minute chunk out of my day. But they feel like they’re imposing. With BM, I just had a feeling that I should tell him of our shared birth date.

My hunch paid off. BM was incredibly nice on that call. He forgot his fantasy and just talked about his life. He didn’t spill any deep dark secrets. It was more like I was a friend and he was telling me about his day-small talk with occasional sharing. At the end of the call he thanked me for the first time.

Now when he calls he’s not as annoying. BM still likes me to talk constantly and he still likes to tweak the fantasy details. But he’s polite about it and there’s a warmness in his voice that wasn’t there before the birthday call.

Posted by Vixen as PSO Confessions at 11:03 PM CST

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From Desiree Alliance:
” Happy New Year! Now that the holidays are behind us, wanted to remind everyone about the upcoming Desiree Alliance Conference this July 25-30th in Las Vegas. We are looking for presenters and attendees and a few deadlines are quickly approaching. For those unfamiliar with this conference, it is a national convergence of sex workers and our allies to help build a stronger and more diverse sex worker rights movement and create discussion surrounding the issues many sex workers face today.

Deadline for presentation proposals is March 1. This is just a few months away now and we are still looking for presenters for our five different tracks, including Academic and Policy, Activism, Arts & Media, Business Development, and Harm Reduction and Outreach. If you have a presentation idea that falls outside the guidelines for these tracks, please submit it to [email protected].

Early registration deadline is January 15. If you would just like to attend the conference and would like to take advantage of the early registration rate of $150 (includes meals), please register here. Registration will be open until July 15, 2010. Our host hotel has offered room rates of $25/night and there will be scholarships available for those unable to afford cost of conference.

If you can’t attend or present, please help us spread the word about the conference! Please forward this email to interested parties or link to the conference homepage here- Desiree Alliance Conference

Hope to see you in Vegas this July!”

Posted by Vixen as Activism, Sex Workers at 10:56 PM CST

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“This is the shit of your dreams.”
-yours truly

Posted by Vixen as Quote Book at 8:23 PM CST

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The phone rang. I answered and greeted the caller.

“Whose this?!” he asked.

I had already said my name. But maybe he hadn’t heard so I repeated myself.

“No you’re not!” The caller sounded annoyed.

“Excuse me?” I asked. How could I not be me?

The guy explained that he had talked to me months ago and I was definitely not her. He told me that my voice sounded wrong and nothing like the mistress he had talked to before.

I tried to use my “normal” phone voice while talking to him but he was convinced I wasn’t me. The absurdity of the moment made me laugh.

“Well I’m not sure how to convince you that it’s really me” I said.

“You’re so full of bullshit,” he sneered before hanging up.

Did my voice really sound that different? I don’t have a cold and was wide awake when he called. I certainly didn’t recognize his voice.

Posted by Vixen as PSO Confessions at 11:52 PM CST

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