Promoting Sexual Ignorance in the Name of God

Oh, for Pete's sake!

I have written before about how I believe the "church," by which I mean the insitiution of christian religions in general, is responsible for the ruination of millions of sex lives and by extension, marriages. And don't get me started on the countless hang-ups so many people have. I keep hoping that now, since most of humanity has made it into the 21st century, things will change. I wish these people would get themselves and their dirty little minds out of the dark ages and start to think like modern human beings.

I keep getting disappointed. It seems that those same ostrich-inspired individuals who openly and unashamedly refute so much that science has taught us, are on the prowl again. It's not enough to insinst on forced sexual ignorance for their own children. Now they want to make sure the whole f'ing world remains just as stupid and blind as they are.

If you like getting fired up about other people's willful ignorence, read on!

The medical website Medilexicon ran an article on September 9, 2009, about the new sex education guidelines that will soon be released to educators all over the world to help develop sex and health education curricula. Here is the lead of the article:

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization this week is scheduled to release draft international sex education guidelines, the New York Times reports. The guidelines -- which UNESCO, the World Health Organization and UNICEF have been working on for more than two years -- are designed to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, improve sexual health and reduce the number of illegal abortions through sex education. Once finalized, the guidelines will be internationally distributed to education ministries, school systems and teachers to help direct educators in teaching students about their bodies, sex, relationships and sexually transmitted infections. . . .

Conservative and religious groups, mostly from the U.S., (emphasis mine) have attacked a June draft of the guidelines for encouraging discussions on condom use, masturbation and the statement that sexual abstinence is "only one of a range of choices available to young people" to prevent STIs and unintended pregnancies. The groups also have criticized the guidelines' assertion that "legal abortion performed under sterile conditions by medically trained personnel is safe." The guidelines encourage discussing "access to safe abortion and post-abortion care" and the "use and misuse of emergency contraception" with students ages 12 to 15.

The full text of this article ran here.

Realize, the people writing these guidelines are respected professionals in the international health community. Two years worth of research, discussion, and work has so far gone into writing this document. Most of the world seems to be OK with the guidelines as they were published (in draft form) last June. Only some conservative and religious groups, mainly American ones, want to fly in the face of scientific fact and professional expertise, to claim that sexual abstinence is the only way to sexual safety, and that proper medical abortions are unsafe. In pigheadedly promoting thier own agendas, without any understanding of the realities young people face all over the world, they would choose to risk the life and health of millions.

How sick. How sad. How pathetic that the majority of these dissenters come from America, one of the most affluent and medically advanced countries in the world.

How disheartening, that this is where our freedom of religion has landed us. Here we have the freedom to promote dangerous misinformation in the name of Jesus, who claimed to be "the light and the truth."

There you have it. Welcome to America, land of the free, home of the ignorant.

The shame rubs off on you

I was just catching up on my reading and came across Melissa Gira's blog. Melissa is a sex worker who is also a free-lance writer, activist, and some other things. I came upon a sentence in her entry about a vigil to help end violence against sex workers, which she organized. This is what she wrote:

There is too much risk already in this work, in moving in the world as those who carry so much of people’s sexual shame and fear and pain.

Wow. I don't intend to address the violence we in the sex/entertainment biz face, although I know it is a very real risk. What really floored me was the way she nailed how being in this business colors how I face the world around me.

In my work, I really do see a lot of the seedy side of people. Not seedy people, just the seedy, seamy side we all have. I am at peace with my darker side, for the most part, which makes me able to face that darkness in other people. But thing is, that darkness scares a lot of people. Their own dark side scares them, and other people's darkness scares them too.

We all fear the unknown, the unexamined side of ourselves. We fear the unknown in others, possible because it reflects our own hidden selves. Because we fear the abyss, it is difficult to face and examine it. Without examination, or hidden selves remain unknown and fearsome, and the cycle continues.

Here come the sex workers and the entertainers, who listen to, act out, interact with, and participate in the hidden aspects of so many people. We see their fears; we touch their shame. Whether this harms or even changes us, is not the point. The world outside these personal little dramas knows instinctively that we have had our hands in the dirty, murky parts of other minds, and fears we are contaminated. They believe that shame rubs off on us like coal dust, and if they come too near us, the dirt and dust of all those unexamined fantasies will somehow transfer to them. It will stain them and sully them. It will make them unclean.

Whether they have given it that much thought or not, that is what people mean when they say they don't want to "associate with" certain groups of other people. They know I carry part of the shame and fear and pain of hundreds of other people. I know they know it. I know they fear it.

I regard people outside the industry warily. To them, I am an unknown "other" because I make my living where angels fear to tread. I am unsure how they will handle the truth of my life, but I know what their gut reaction will be if I choose to tell them. I've seen that before: one split second of horror before they arrange their features and choose their reply.

I move in the world as one who carries other people's fear and pain and shame, and I carry a shield, too, to protect me from those who fear where I've been.

Simple pleasures, guilty pleasures--a belated Thanksgiving post

I have had, going around in my head, several things at the same time. Every time I indulge in one of my favorite guilty pleasures (and there are many), it seems like a great idea for a post. I thought I should write the standard cheesy "Stuff I'm Thankful For" post on Thanksgiving weekend, but between all the crazy running around and goings-on of the holiday weekend, I never managed it. Then only a day or two ago, I started thinking about all the basic simple pleasures in my life, which make up about 99% of the really, really good stuff. That is the stuff for which I am really thankful.

These are some of my favorite simple-or guilty-pleasures.

• Rock opera--the more cheesy, melodramatic, and over blown, the better
• the way my son makes me laugh, even when I am having a shitty day
• When my son gets in my bed because it is cold in his room, and when I go to bed, the sheets are all warmed up for me
• My cat, because she is so soft and so affectionate
• My other two cats, because they really think I am somebody special
• Starbucks fat-free, sugar-free caramel macciato
• Pepper-jack cheese tornadoes from Speedway (The absolute best in bad gas-station food)
• Hot gas-station cappuccino on a cold night, driving between shows
• Calling my husband from my cell phone and chatting all the way to work, which is the only time we have to talk to each other during the week.

And one thing I don't think I've had even once since my kid was born: Reading the news paper over coffee and omlettes at a local diner.

I owe somebody one

I wanted to post a nice Thanksgiving post about what I am so thankful for. It turns out I am just too tired to do it tonight, so I will try to hit it up in the morning or at the latest, over the weekend. But I do owe somebody something, so here it is:

To Al, otherwise known as Dave, I am waving hello to you from the lonely east end of the bell curve. And you are only aobut the 3rd person I ever met who knew what that meant!

I am proud of US! (pun intended)

Barack Obama is now the president elect of the United States. This is the third election in a row that made me cry, but this time it was with relief and a bit of pride in my fellow Americans.

Some of you may know that I am a US Army veteran. As such, I am intensely patriotic and I believe whole-heartedly that America is an amazing place with unlimited potential. I have been very sorry in the recent past to see so many Americans being apathetic, lazy, or just downright stupid or willfully ignorant. I spend a whole lot of time around people whose only hobby is watching re-runs of bad sitcoms. I have to admit, I had lost faith in Americans and in the beautiful promise of democracy, that people can and should and desire to govern themselves. (Yes, I know the United States is technically a republic, but let's save the civics lesson for another day.) I truly believe that is our right, privilege, and responsibility to vote, and to be informed when we do so. I believe we are all entitled to our opinions, our tastes, our quirks, and everything else that makes us who we are. We are guaranteed life, liberty, and the right to pursue our own happiness; it says so right there in the document to govern all other documents, our Constitution.

We are so fortunate to be citizens of this country. It is the least we can do, the least we can give back, to make sure the people we choose to do most of our thinking for us will be the ones we really want doing it. And yet, for years, voter apathy has been one of the biggest problems facing any candidate for political office. People treat their own government like the weather or the will of God--everybody wants to whine about it, but nobody wants to do anything about it.

So tonight I am proud--extremely proud--of my fellow Americans. I am proud of us for getting our lazy butts off the couch and going out to vote, for whomever we chose. I am proud of busy people who spent hours out of their day just waiting to vote, regardless of what else they wanted or needed to do today. I am proud of us for voting for a man on the basis of his character and his policies, rather than on the color of his skin. I was so worried that many, many people would turn out to be closet racists--people who would tell the pollsters whatever they felt like saying, but in the privacy of the polling booth, would let race dictate their final choice. I am proud also of my sisters who supported Hillary Clinton, and were too smart to be fooled by the idiot Sarah Palin, whose resemblance to Mrs. Clinton begins and ends with being born female.

I am so proud of us tonight, all of us Americans, for showing the rest of the world how peaceful change and revolution can be an ordinary, regular part of life. The tools are provided for us in the Constitution; the power is within us.

Keep it up, America.

I don't normally post on politics, but . . .

In the first place, I believe our First Amendment rights are the most important ones that we, as citizens of a free and democratic country, can possess. Most importantly, our freedom of speech and the press is absolutely essential to our lives as free people. After all, how can we, as voters and citizens and tax-payers, make any decisions about whom to vote for or how our country is to be run or how our money is to be spent, if we don't know all the facts?

I don't make many political comments, either in my writing or in person, because frankly I am ashamed of my inability to keep up with all the news. When I was young and impressionable, I dated a guy who poked holes in any political or economic idea I managed to formulate, which forever after made me not want to open my mouth on the subject. (I later came to realize that was his failing, not mine. ) Today I read an article that completely vindicates me. As I was reading it, I kept saying to myself, "See! I knew it all along!"

This article is by JT Benjamin. It was originally published (as far as I know) on the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website.

Here is a teaser:

I took a long drink of my Samuel Adams Honey Porter and said, “You know what Sarah Palin is? She’s a bimbo . . . .She’s like one of those spokesmodels you see at car shows who’s just supposed to stand there and look pretty and draw in the potential customers and extol the virtues of the vehicle going around on the turntable. In this case, of course, the vehicle’s a Model T Ford. . . ."

Here is the complete text.

This is an excellent article. It makes several good points that had occurred to me, but that I had not seen mentioned anywhere else in the media. I won't say any thing else about it, until you have had a chance to read it for yourself. But be warned, heretofore I will not be keeping my opinions to myself!

What I've been talking about this week

I have noticed that every week, I tend to have the same conversations over and over again. Whatever topic is current for me, gets mentioned to a lot of people. Then the following week, it's on to something new. For example, the week my son got his ant farm, I talked a lot about ants and ant farms. The week my cat's hair fell out in clumps, I talked a lot about kitty medical problems. And so on. These were the hot topics for this past week:

• I am going on a mini-vacation this week to Door County, Wisconsin. It will be me, Mr. O'Reilly, my mom, and my kiddo. We plan to go hiking, look at whatever fall leaves are left, see some historical stuff, and swim. Since my mother will be with us, I also plan to drink.
• My kiddo had his first hockey game last Friday. They do it the oddest way. My kid is in the Mites age group, which are the youngest. The next-youngest group, I think they call them Squirts, play at the same time. This is how they do it: The Mites start the game and play for a while. Then a buzzer sounds and the Mites all clear the ice and the Squirts come out and pick up the game exactly where the younger ones left off. They keep switching out that way for an hour. I think it's a good system, because the little ones don't have that much endurance, and they can rest and drink water, and get a little on-the-spot coaching, before they go back on the ice.
• I am going to take off Election Day and take my kiddo to the Barak Obama election party in Grant Park, if it is going to be open like they say it is. What a great part of history! Regardless of who wins (or who I would like to win) it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be at something like that.
• Want to buy some caramel corn? My homeschool support group is having a fund raiser!

So, that's my week at a glance. Hope yours was a good one!

What do strippers fantasize about?

Sometimes people ask me what fantasies I have or what my favorite fantasies are. To be honest, I change out my fantasies quite frequently. For example, for a while I was into male-heavy threesomes and orgies on tropical beaches. Lately (like, this week) I have been thinking about more couple-oriented scenarios.

I don't think my fantasies through from beginning to end like a story. That explains why, even though I think a lot, I have not written many fantasy stories. Rather, I get an idea, and then the images flash into my head like a slide show. This is what has been on my mind this week:

• I meet my man in a truck stop, we pretend like we have never seen each other before, and he bangs me senseless in the pay shower.
  
• We go to a place where people will be surprised but not offended, and I get on my knees in front of him to perform a public blow-job with a messy facial ending.
  
• He throws me up against a wall, pushes my skirt up around my hips, shoves my thong to one side, and rams into me, kissing and biting me so hard my lips will be bruised for a week.
  
• I take him to work and give him a lap-dance the likes of which I have never given to anyone before. One or possibly both of us will need a change of clothes at the end. Sometimes this fantasy involves another dancer and a girly make-out session, as well.
  
• He waits in the dark for me to get home, throws me on the floor, and has his way with me, however much I holler and carry on.
  
• We meet in a tacky bar and go to an even tackier motel room. He pays me before we begin.
• He comes home to find me playing with my toys in the shower. He watches for a while, sliding his pants down to free himself. When he can't just stand by and watch any more, he joins me in the shower.
• As a variation on this theme, we are in a dom/sub relationship (we aren't, in reality) and he is going to punish me for using my toys without permission. I am going to get spanked and, since I like sticking things up there so much, I will now have to submit to larger and larger (or stranger) things.
  
• We start fooling around in the kitchen and wind up finger painting each other with chocolate syrup.
• I come home to find him looking at porn on the computer or watching a movie. Without saying a word, I begin to imitate and act out whatever I see on the screen, recreating in living flesh whatever images he had been getting off on.
  
• I spend the day in a loose skirt and no underwear, giving him easy access whenever and wherever he wants.
  

OK, that's enough for now. I need to go take a shower. And it has only a little to do with getting clean . . . .

A sad and intense day at work

It was a sad, strange day all around me yesterday. I have a good friend who rides with me all the time. Her boyfriend went to jail yesterday morning, after a few reprieves and delays and so on. He was supposed to go last week, but at the last minute was told to show up after the holiday weekend. So of course my friend was all sad.

Then I was called in to Porters for a rare Monday shift, (Thursday is my usual day) because the mother of one of the girls had died. Porters is a kind of small-town bar in a medium-sized city, where everybody knows everybody else, and many of the people knew this particular girl and her mother going back 2o years or more. It turns out that this girl's mother died of the same thing the wife of one of our regulars died of, a couple of months ago. Sadness sort of permeated the whole atmosphere. After I commiserated with the regulars who knew the dancer and her mother and the customer and his wife, I moved down the bar. The next person I met was a widower who, because he is focusing on his two teenage sons, has not been looking for a new lady friend. He seemed to think I might be the one, but of course I'm not. When I danced for him, he held on to me like I was his last hope.

Later I saw an old friend who also buys dances from me. He told me about how, while I was on vacation, his wife had died swiftly and unexpectedly of a heart condition nobody knew she had. To make matters worse, he decided last week to read her journal, and found out some awful surprises. If you are reading this, my friend, know that my heart goes out to you.

I was only at Porters for 2 1/2 hours, but I felt like I had been bathed in sadness by the time I left.

(At this point, I feel like I am obligated to write some dumb moralistic comment about the value om my work as an entertainer/temporary therapist/surrogate something-or-other. But look, there is nothing to say. People were sad yesterday. A lot of them. I was there with them, and I listened to their stories, and I helped share the load. Isn't that just basic human decency? )

Sex and Hangups

This all started from a comment that somebody I know thought it was "unholy" to have sex on Easter, the Church's supposedly most holy holiday. "Why on Earth should you not have sex on Easter?" I asked. Well, the response I got was a complete Boomhauer moment, which is to say it included a bunch of mumbling and made no sense whatsoever.

So that got me to thinking, why do people have so many weird ideas and hangups over something that is so completely natural and absolutely necessary to the continuation of life? And why do religious institutions care so much what we do in our own homes and our own beds?

A psychologist named Abraham Maslow published a paper about the hierarchy of human needs. The short explanation is, all people have needs, which can be ordered by importance. If you think of all the things people need to be physically and psychologically healthy, you can arrange those things in a pyramid shape, with the most basic needs (food, shelter, and so forth) as the base and more esoteric notions like self-actualization at the pinnacle. Well, guess what? Sex, as you might have guessed, is right down there in the base with food, water, and air. It's just a basic need. But interestingly, it is the only basic need that you can, physically, live without.

Although Maslow did not put this on paper until 1954, I think the Church has known it for eons. (By "the Church," I mean the Christian institution that came to power as Christianity outgrew its beginnings as a grassroots movement, and all its various branches and splits from the days of Martin Luther onward.) And they have figured out what a powerful means sex can be to motivate and manipulate people. The Church decided to label this natural, normal process as "evil."

They knew that people can't go their whole lives without wanting to have sex, but that they can go a very long time not actually having it. So the Church set up a catch-22 situation to establish control over the masses. They decided to make sex outside of marriage a sin. (The Church has its own reasons for wanting people to be married, but that is a separate discussion. For now, let it suffice to say, there was a lot of money involved, in a lot of ways.) Then they attempted to institute a little thought control, making even thinking about sex a sin. Masturbation, naturally, was forbidden, because blowing off a little steam from all the sex you could not have and were forbidden to think about, was also a sin. And since nobody can go very long in life without wanting sex, then everybody was a sinner.

But wait, there's more. The evil diabolical genius of this plan goes even further. People who did not conform to the Church's celibacy rules were labeled freaks and perverts, and made into social outcasts, which denied them the safety and community of the Church, around which so much of social life was and still is built. By by labeling any and every sexual thought and impulse (even random erections) as filthy and vile, the Church taught people to think of themselves as worthless sinners, having no self control and unworthy of love, especially God's love. By naming all sexual impulses as unnatural and immoral, the Church denied everyone the right to consider himself or herself as a basically moral and good person. Have a peek at that pyramid, will you? Tell me if the Church missed anything.

What did the church get out of all this? Money, for one thing. Marriage licenses, clerical fees, indulgences (The now almost-defunct practice of paying other people to pray for you, to help mitigate your sins), penances (the practice of giving time, money, or prayer to make up for your own sins) , and so forth. And they got control of peoples lives, even of their thoughts. They taught parents to pass on these rules to their kids, in effect deputizing the parents and making them partners in the Church's quest for control. They even forbid birth control, divorce, and any other practice that might limit the number of children (future Church members) born to any given couple. More church goers meant more money for the church, more labor to exploit, and more expendable minions for holy wars. The Church needed people, and they needed to control them.

And the people needed their Church, too. They needed it for all the valid, natural reasons like the social aspect and wanting to get in touch with the divine. And then they also needed it for the perverse reason that the Church set up, in it's own self-replicating cycle. The needed it to cleanse them of their "unholy" desire for the most natural of things.

In my opinion, most sexual hangups (I don't mean real problems like pedophilia; I just mean the weird little things people worry about, like whether it is OK to have sex on Easter, or whether sex is supposed to be fun, or whether casual sex is cool) are the result of people being unable to resolve the need for social acceptance and the safety of family and community, with the need for sex. Like that joke about stress being the result when the brain overrides the body's desire to slap somebody who desperately needs it, those odd little fears are the result of years of conditioning. So the next time you wonder if it's really OK to have a quickie on Sunday morning before church, wonder instead, who told you to worry about that? And why do they care?

So This Lady Accused Me of Having No Morals

When I first put up my MySpace page, some woman sent me a message. The Subject line read "Morals." The entire body of the message read, "Do you even know what they are?" I liked my reply to this letter so well I decided to publish it here.

Dear Paige:

About a week ago, you sent me an e-mail with the subject “morals” and the entire body of the message read as follows:

“Do you even know what they are?”

I wondered, as in my reply to you, why you were concerned with my education or lack of it, but you never answered my question. I can only assume that you are too busy sending such messages to every stripper, exotic dancer, adult industry model, and porn actress on MySpace. That’s OK; as the moral watchdog of MySpace, you must have a lot to do.

As to your original question:

Yes, dear Paige, I do know what morals are. I think my Mom first introduced the concept to me. I further refined my ideas at the University of Maryland (Phi Theta Kappa, Class of ‘95—GO TARAPINS!) and while serving my country in the US Army Signal Corps. Just to be certain, I looked it up. This is what my dictionary says:

Morals: principles of right and wrong as they govern standards of general or sexual behavior (emphasis mine)

Well, since I am a sex worker, I have to believe it is the sexual aspect of this definition to which you are referring. I have drawn the conclusion that because my principles of right and wrong, as they govern sex-oriented entertainment and quasi-sexual behavior, are different form yours, you have discounted my principles and simply choose to believe I have none.

Shame on you, Paige. And you call yourself a Christian (other).

I would never tell you that your moral convictions are wrong; however I have a right to defend my moral ground as well. I am always honest and forthright in my business dealings. I do not go home with my customers, and I do not pretend that I will. I never lie about my marital status, and I never lie to my husband about what I do at work. In fact, the only time I ever lie about anything regarding my work is to protect somebody who would be hurt by the truth, like my son. I lie to his teachers and the PTA about what I do, to protect my son from people like you.

I am not trying to steal your husband, nor am I trying to steal all his money. I don’t want it on my conscience that I helped some man spend the grocery money and half the rent, because I know how devastating that can be to his wife and kids. How do I know? Because I’ve been there, baby.

What I am trying to do is feed my kid and pay my bills, just like any normal American parent. My decision to work in the sex entertainment field, rather than one of the many other things I could be doing, is all about the hours and the flexibility. I can be here for my family when they need me. (This year I took about 6 or 7 weeks off to deal with an abnormal amount of family drama, and my work didn’t even bat an eye.) Yes, Paige, believe it or not, dancing is a family value for me.

I understand that many Christians (other) believe that any sort of sexual behavior outside of marriage is some sort of sin. Obviously I disagree. Lest you think I am being arbitrary, alow me to point out that the Old Testament is full of lovely dancing girls who are praised for their beauty and grace, not condemned. The Ten Commandments state only that a man should not covet his neighbor’s wife. Harmless flirtation is not condemned.

Jesus Himself befriended and forgave many supposedly promiscuous women, such as the woman at the well. Even His close friend Mary Magdalene is commonly believed to have been a prostitute. After her famous entrance into the story with the alabaster jar, Mary is said to have traveled with Jesus and the Twelve, one of several women who “provided for them out of their own means.” As a prostitute, “her own means” would have to be money she had saved from working, or else she may have been working still. Imagine that: The travels of Jesus and the Disciples all through the Middle East were financed, at least in part, by the earnings of a sex worker! And Jesus must have loved her anyway: Mary Magdalene was the first person Jesus came to see when He rose from the dead.

We humans are sexual beings. If, as many Christians believe, we were created by God, then it is God who made us this way. Scientists are still debating whether humans are biologically wired to mate for life, or, like the majority of species, we are meant to crave change. Perhaps it’s true what some people say, that the male mind is always looking for a new place to sew a few wild oats, while the mind of a woman is set to ensure safety and security for herself and her babies.

Imagine for a moment that it is true. Say a man loves is wife, but he needs to get out a little. Take a little vacation from reality. So he stops by a bar on the way home from work. He could go to a regular bar, hit on some girl, and take her to a hotel room. Well, that’s about the end of the marriage right there.

Or he could come to see me. Sure, we will have a drink, flirt a little, maybe I will rub his back or even dance a few songs for him. Then I give him a peck on the cheek and send him home in a good mood. When he gets home, he is a little more relaxed and happy. He doesn’t kick the dog, refrains from yelling at his kids, and is responsive to his wife. Maybe they even make love after the kids go to bed. I think that is a much happier ending, don’t you, Paige?

My point here, the moral of my story you might say, is that yes, I do understand and even practice morals. The moral code by which I work and live is very strong. It is not wrong, it’s just not yours. As a business woman in the sex-entertainment industry, I provide, with integrity, an honest service and in return get paid an honest fee. I believe deeply in the value of my work, the value of entertainment and fantasy. And (surprise!) I also beiee in the bible, especially the proverbs:

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Playing With Blog Things

This is what happens when I pull a night shift. I am absolutely wrecked for the next day and spend my time on nonsense like this.

..>..>

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ISFP)

Your personality type is caring, peaceful, artistic, and calm. Only about 7% of all people have your personality, including 8% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

..>..>

You’re 55% Irish

You’re very Irish, and most likely from Ireland. (And if you’re not, you should be!)

How Irish Are You?

Which Disne Princess are You?
Mulan
You have a strong sense of family vaule and always strive for their approval. You have a special love of music, dance, and riding.

Your Soul’s Inner Element (AMAZING anime pictures for GIRLS!)
created by Venla
Your Results:
Earth
-”The Earth upon which we walk”-Not only the planet on which we live But the very substance from which we are made She is our Mother, She is Gaia, She is The creator of all things It is to she, We return when this bodies time is done”Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust..” sound familiar ?

Which Goddess do you most embody? (girls only)
created by Mad4Robin01
Your Results:
Lakshmi
The goddess of luck and good fortune. Everybody LOVES you and you rarely make enemies. Plus you care about others! Especially those you love. You will make some man/woman very happy.

What Kind of Angel Are You?? (awesome pics XD)
created by Jimmy_Lord
Your Results:
Guardian Angel
You are the Guardian Angel.You watch over humans and protect them from the influence of evil.Most people have Guardian angels but some forsake them and then they are sent back to heaven to be re-asigned

Exactly what I thought

“Sex saturates our media, drives new technologies, enters the economy in creative ways and heavily influences who we choose as mates and parents of our future children. It’s a basic human need. But we can’t teach it with any kind of thoroughness because someone might get offended, and woe betide the teachers who stray from reproductive biology into more complex questions of relationships, gender, politics or pleasure.”

You would think this was written about the United States,.but it’s actually about England.

I picked this out because it so aptly reflects what I have thought and been saying for years.

For more of this article, go here.

Maybe this is nature's way?

I was just thinking about two news stories I read recently. I posted one here—it was about two male flamingos raising a chick together. (This is apparently fairly common among certain types of birds.) The other was about a female shark who had lived in a tank with two other females for more than 3 years, but who gave birth in spite of her lack of male companionship. The baby was DNA tested and, sure enough, there was no genetic trace of a male parent. This female had conceived and produced offspring, all on her own.

When I mentioned these news stories to Mr. O’Reilly, he reminded me of a line from Jurassic Park, “Life will find a way to go on.” Or words to that effect. (If you recall, all the dinosaurs in the park were female, but they still managed to reproduce.) His reference was to the female shark story, but it made me wonder . . . .

What if the homosexual bird pairs (from what I have read, they are usually male) are ALSO nature’s way of meeting a need. It seems to me that, if all the available adult birds (or other animals) in a given community were actively engaged in raising their own young exclusively, or else were unattached, there would be nobody left to care for the orphans. If a young animal were to be left orphaned, this would be a tremendous waste of resources in a community. All the food, shelter, effort, etc. that was expended to get a female pregnant and to the egg-laying or offspring-producing stage would be lost if the young never survived to mate. Sometimes a female that has lost her own young can be induced to raise another individual, but not always. What better way for nature to protect against this loss that to put a perennial “nanny” into a community, in the form of adult individuals who will not reproduce on their own, but who will happily raise orphans?

It’s an interesting thought, no?

Seriously Warped Article in *Glamour*!

Did anybody see this? It is a demented article in Glamour magazine about one woman who started out with a pathetic life, becane a stripper, hated her life even more, quit being a stripper, and is now trying to save all the other strippers. Among the horrendous and retarded things they are implying or even stating outright is that ladies my age cannot make money dancing and so are letting the customers "put it in" while attempting to disguise the act by throwing table cloths over thier laps. What kind of club is that? As irritated I get with the Pig Pen, that is jsut unthinkable!

I wrote this reply, and I encourage you to do reply as well. The more they hear form us dancers and the people who love us, the better they will rethink this stupid position they have. Let's tell 'em what we think!

Dear Glamour:

I have read and loved your magazine for years. However, I am very disappointed to see your article, "No One Should Have to be a Stripper."

Ms. Dust seems to be doing an important and useful service for those girls who sincerely want to get out of dancing but are not sure how. I commend her for her work and her non-judgmental attitude.

Your portrayal of exotic dancers as being, to a woman, sad, desperate individuals willing to do anything to make a buck, is absolutely disgusting.

As I write this, I am sitting in my quiet farm house, having a cup of coffee and listening to Christmas music before I leave for my shift as a dancer at a small bar in Stone Park, Illinois. My life, like that of many of my friends and colleagues, is completely normal. I myself have a wonderful husband (who has a job and does not have a drug habit) and a happy, healthy son. I provide for my family an income greater than what I made teaching science, while committing fewer hours outside the home. My work provides us with extra cash for family vacations and day trips, along with the flexibility to take weeks off at a time if I need to be with my family.

I have been dancing on and off since I was 18. In fact, I will pass my 19 year anniversary next month. As a veteran in this business, I found this statement particularly offensive:

Ahnee says she saw women "who'd been working for 18 years. They had bad plastic surgery, and they'd have to have sex with customers because they weren't in demand as dancers; they'd put a tablecloth over their lap and let the man put it in." She didn't want her life to get to that.

I know many women who are my age or older, who have naturally spectacular bodies, and are in extremely high demand. Not only do they have regular customers they have cultivated over the years; they are constantly attracting new customers who admire thirty- and forty-something women for their beauty and their conversation. We are all making a good living, and we are not throwing table cloths over our laps to do so.

Sincerely,

Colleen C. O'Reilly
colleenoreilly.com


Post Script:
About 2 dozen of us at my stripper forum site sent replies to this letter. We shared them on the forum, and I can tell you, each letter was original, articulate, and intelligent. Each of us got a patronizing form letter, but no other reply. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other letters were ever published in the "Letters to the Editor" section.

I Don't NEED Saving, Thank You

This article in Glamour is seriously warped:

“No one should have to be a stripper”

She spent years dancing naked for leering men clutching $5 bills. Now she’s trying to help other women escape the soul-killing triple-X life.

Now seriously, nobody HAS to be a stripper. Me, I could have taught school. I did that for one soul-killing year. Every day I faced a few dozen cocky, arrogant, misguided adolescents and attempted to teach them the pleasures of reading and learning and using their minds. And then they told me they hadn’t done their homework because they were too busy watching TV or getting laid.

I could have stayed in retail. I could have killed more than my soul managing a Radio Shack store, mandatory 54 hours a week on $25,000 salary, with abusive customers and a misogamistic district manager. I was seriously expected to tell customers “thank you, please visit us again” after they threw merchandise at me. It happened more than once, and let me tell you, getting beaned in the side of the head with a package of four D batteries, HURTS!

But no, I chose to give all that up for the sad and depressing work of dancing. I must admit, I feel SOOOOOOOO degraded when some moron grabs my ass, that I just have to turn around and smack him for it. (Smacking people who desperately dereve it is jsut so humiliating, don’t you think??) It is completely demoralizing to have people greet me warmly, buy me drinks, and give me compliments. I felt so much more respected when the great majority of people I met in a day would imply or even say outright, what do you know; you are only a woman (teacher)?

I really hate that, you know. Having people act happy to see me. I hate it more when they say how much they enjoy my company, or my dancing, or even looking at various parts of my body. I really mostly especially hate it when I know I have made somebody happy, really brightened their day. Absolutely disgusting.

And do you know what else I hate? (Ohhhhhh, I am on a roll now!) I hate not punching a time clock. I hate not being responsible for other people’s children or merchandise or money or property. I hate being able to stay home with my kid when he needs me and taking time off to help my mom. Making my own schedule really sucks. So does picking up an extra shift or two whenever I decide I want something.

And I really really f’ing despise making as much in 2 days as I used to make all week, attempting to put a little sense into the heads of other people’s insolent brats. Now I have no bloody choice but to spend some of my extra time and income with my own son, making sure he does not grow up to be the same kind of willfully ignorant, arrogant little cuss that I so enjoy beating my head against. Damn! That was one of my life’s ambitions, to be so busy providing for my kid that I didn’t have time to raise him. And I guess I have to spend the rest of my free time building up my couple of businesses and making my husband feel like the luckiest man alive. Man, that irks me!

Yo, sister! Over here! I need to be saved!