Becoming Darklady

“Are we the rattlesnake or the snake’s tail?

Who should we let prevail?

The head or the tail?”

– a Friend of the Darklady

The process of Becoming is never-ending. It begins before we realize it and when it ends is the stuff of philosophical rants and religious doctrines. Some people seem to spend their lives in a state of perpetual sleep, never quite Becoming yet somehow still Existing. I sometimes wonder if the moment of their deaths won’t be the moment at which they awaken, however briefly.

Working writers, just like mainstream actors or video vixens, are only as good as their last releases, so as soon as the ink is dry on the CRT, it’s time to get moving on the next piece of priceless prose. Time to create. Time to Become again. In order for that to happen, there has to be an eternal flame of some sort that burns inside, probably where sanity is usually located. The process of Becoming, of using that internal fire as a motivating force that purifies and strengthens is an inherent part of the creative process. It is also inherently risky, since it opens the individual up to constant change and growth, both of which can be exhausting.

By late September, I was feeling burned by my own fire and in desperate need of reconnecting with my creative Self. My titleholder year as Ms. Oregon State Leather 2004 had been wonderful and the Ms. World Leather contest, in spite of its rather horrific aspects, had been filled with gifts of insight, friendship, and adventure – but it was time to redefine myself and determine where I would focus my passions. It was time for me to remember what it meant to be a writer on fire from within.

The annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco proved to be an excellent excuse for both business and pleasure travel – and an excellent decision on my part. Although I’ve never technically left my heart there, I love to schedule whirlwind tours of the Bay Area so that I can return and indulge the strong affection that I feel for my friends and comrades who live there. If friendships, like wine, improve with age then I have a glorious future of drunkenness ahead of me.

Porn stars, perverts, photographers – these are the men and woman who purify my soul. Richard Pacheco, Mark Kliem, Charles Gatewood, David Steinberg, Michael Rosen, Jay Wiseman, Fakir Musafar, Bill Brent, Carol Queen, Cleo Dubois – these were some of the friends and companions who reminded me that I am a writer. Steinberg’s hot lips against mine reminded me that I am a woman. As a sex writer, that’s not a bad combination.

But I’m not yet the writer or the woman or the sex writer whom I will Become. If all goes according to plan, I won’t be those things until I wake up the moment before my death – which I’m hoping is many decades, many deadlines, many adventures, many trips to San Francisco – and many hot kisses — in the future.

For more information visit:

www.BodyPlay.com

www.CarolQueen.com

www.CharlesgGatewood.com

www.DavidSteinberg.us

www.FolsomStreetFair.com

www.LavenderLounge.com

www.MsWorldLeather.com

www.ShayNew.com

www.SM-Arts.com

Labor Day at the Rubber Oasis

Just when I thought I’d been to the strangest place on earth and through the most surreal of experiences, I discovered Palm Springs and the West Coast Rubber contest. Gay boys wearing rubber during 103 degree heat with palm trees sprinkled along golf course perfect lawns in the middle of n otherwise inhospitable landscape. What more could an alabaster pale girl from the Pacific Northwest want in a Labor Day weekend away from home?

I love to play dress up and although I don’t currently own any fashion items made from rubber, when I was initially recruited as a judge for the contest I envisioned myself decked out daily in an assortment of delights from my vinyl dress collection. I wanted to show solidarity while simultaneously dazzling everyone with my incredible sense of naughty femme style. Fortunately, calmer heads than mine prevailed and a quick review of the anticipated temperatures for that god-awful hot September weekend completely removed any notion I had of me and my vinyl ensemble making our debut at The Villa Resort.

I’m not necessarily averse to perspiration, but I admit that I consider it to be one of the down sides to hot weather. There were a lot of both during that weekend – all endured with amazing grace by profusely sweating men slathered deliciously in shiny, slippery, lickable, touchable rubber that fit like a membrane. Rubber shirts, rubber vests, rubber thongs, rubber shorts, rubber chaps, rubber pants, and even rubber boots, rubber gas masks, and rubber aprons. I confess a personal sick fascination with the aprons and the gas masks – and always an affection for those fabulous shirts. As I watched the torrents of precious bodily fluids run out of their jocks or get poured out of their footwear, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had left the vinyl at home and pretended to be a civilian for a while.

The break, if judging a rubberman contest can be called a “break” when you’re a professional sex writer, was not just welcome, it was vital. The nearly drug-like freakiness that is Palm Springs, combined with the reality check that was 24-hour televised coverage of the devastation that once was New Orleans, made it easier for me to relax and enjoy the good fortune that was a dry heat, the luxury of a resort room with a huge shower, the pampering of local friends who appreciate fine things, paddling topless in a swimming pool with a gay porn star, and drinking in the excellent company of the contest’s organizers, volunteers, audience members, and other judges. I ate, I drank, I made merry, and I refused to be overly stressed as I continued to hear that I was increasingly becoming infamous, post Ms. World Leather.

The crisp, colorful twilights that bless Palm Springs each early morning and evening beautifully highlight the liberating sense of unreality that only a carefully landscaped city on the edge of nowhere can symbolize. Every place is strange during the first visit, whether it’s a chaotic internal landscape or an orderly oasis in the desert. The glory of an unfamiliar environment is how it provides the opportunity to return to center and work out again. Watching beautiful gay boys sweat and shine under the holiday sun was the perfect opportunity for me to reconnect with myself not as a former title holder or as a title contender or as an activist or even as a kinky person, but as a person — and a rather creative one, at that… a fact I would learn more about when I visited San Francisco later during what proved to be the very sexy month of September.

For more information visit:

www.msworldleather.com

www.westcoastrubber.com

Trouble with a Capital “D”

During my college years it became a personal ritual at the beginning of each term to send a silent prayer to the gods that never listened in the hopes that somehow I would be able to fade into the woodwork and be just another student. Nothing fails like prayer and before long everyone knew my name and, in spite of my best attempts to look and act like others, they also knew that there was something A Little Bit Different about me. Still, none of us realized that I wasn’t merely marching to the tune of another drummer; I was marching to the tune of an entire percussion section.

After college, I managed to get myself critically folded, spindled, and mutilated during a short flight in what quickly became a crumpled VW Bug. Once I came back from the dead a few times, I decided that if I was going to get noticed, I was going to make it happen on my own terms. I embraced the Internet and its capacity for spreading my philosophical ravings about sexual exploration and emotional intimacy – and the Internet embraced me in return. In June of 2001 the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom let me know that my viral marketing campaign had not gone unnoticed. Not only had I alerted the world to the presence of my many words, but those words were dangerous enough to land my plush ass in court if a certain calico cat phobic U.S. Attorney General had his way. We made plans to march down the Supreme Court aisle together, with me as the smiling face behind their free speech test case. Ironically, the very danger inherent in my words and life made me a riskier plaintiff than they were ready to spin doctor, so we decided not to go all the way after all.

Breaking up is hard to do and silly me, I hadn’t realized we’d actually done it until the first night of the Ms. World Leather contest of August 2005 when the fact was brought abruptly to my attention during a less-than-pleasant confrontation in the contest hallway. And to think I once had a therapist confuse my polyamorous tendencies with a fear of commitment.

I’ve been dumped before so I know from experience that it just makes me more determined, more independent, more focused, and more efficient. If decades of being told to toe the line by my drill sergeant daddy, ever-virgin mother, and society-at-large didn’t shut me the fuck up, a temper tantrum in a hallway certainly doesn’t seem likely to do the job. The battle for and celebration of sexual freedom has many fronts and there are many stories to tell while exploring them. I plan on being there to see, feel, and tell.

In addition to the wonderful world of leather, there’s an awesome landscape of human sexuality yearning to breathe free. Non-monogamy in its many swing and poly permutations; monogamy in its controversial popularity; pornography gay, straight, bi, and otherwise; abstinence; celibacy; and solo sex – In my opinion it’s all about the right to choose and have the tools to understand and live with our choices. These are the things that matter to me and, as I said during the Ms. World Leather contest, I’m willing to work with whomever is dedicated to liberty. In print (and with a full percussion section playing behind me) I’m proud to say that includes the Free Speech Coalition, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and a collection of amazing individuals.

For more information visit:

www.freespeechcoalition.com

www.msworldleather.com

www.ncsfreedom.org

www.woodhullfoundation.org

The Things We Do For Love

In truth, he more than slightly resembles an Adonis. Golden curls and laughing eyes, a taut, chiseled body with the butt of a dancer and the legs of a bicyclist. A vegetarian – of course – he is highly tactile and as graceful as a cat.

“I need you,” he beckoned to me from my shower, his naked body gleaming with hot, soapy water and his face switching from sweet innocence to raw and smoldering lust — then back to playful sweetness.

Ever the businesswoman, I took a deep breath and steadied my resolve. “Everybody needs me,” I assured him, trying not to notice anything below his tapered waist. “But right now, my magazine needs me the most.”

“My magazine” was the 16-page ‘zine that I’d put together with the able assistance of Oceania as a visual aid for the Ms. World Leather judges, press, and audience in Las Vegas during the August 26 – 28 contest. Within its pages were original articles by me about the Barbara Nitke vs. Communications Decency Act lawsuit, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Free Speech Coalition, and my experience as a sex writer and alternative sexuality activist, as well as a piece explaining some of my philosophy regarding sex positive activism. Four of Nitke’s beautiful and potentially illegal (according to the clearly unconstitutional CDA) photographs, as well as a shot of me with California gubernatorial candidate and porn queen Mary Carey adorned the front and interior of the magazine. Individually and collaboratively, these words and images created a powerful statement about my love for liberty. But my favorite shot was definitely the one of me, naked and wrapped in a 52-foot vinyl American flag.

There was no time to stop for a dalliance however pleasant. Not even with a male courtesan as beautiful, as eager, as intelligent – and as politically active and aware — as Chris Fox. Instead, we satisfied ourselves with a most personal lap dance and then sat on opposite sides of my office desk talking politics late into the night. The next day we enjoyed a vegetarian breakfast and a good deal of rubbing and stroking during a car ride that featured his nearly hairless body stretched languidly along the length of my reclining passenger side bucket seat – hopefully much to the delight of the more observant drivers in the parallel lanes.

I love sex. All kinds of sex. Hot, sweaty, nasty, dirty, visceral, sweet, clean, tender, soulful, and sublime. But there are some things that I love even more: liberty, self ownership, honesty, my natural rights to speak and think and love and nurture whatever mutually consensual budding love affair that I choose. That means often taking the rougher, narrower road – because the view along the way is often spectacular, as are the unexpected and often unimaginable pleasures to be sampled along the way. But occasionally you have to set aside pleasure and focus on the practical realities of daily living – even when the pleasure is godlike and pleading.

Am I insane? Or are there just some things that we do for love?

For more information visit:

www.freespeechcoalition.com

www.msworldleather.com

www.ncsfreedom.org

www.venetiandreams.com

www.woodhullfoundation.org

Surreal Cervical Experiences

“We’re going to have to get you laid before you compete at Ms. World Leather or your Confessional is going to start getting really bitter,” my leather sash spouse Andy Mangels opined during a summer BBQ to honor his husband’s decision to run for a position of royalty within the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court.

I looked at him calmly and smiled. “Oh, that problem’s been taken care of,” I assured him, enjoying the light of realization as it slowly illuminated his eyes. He looked to his left and into the nodding face of Remarkable, the young man who had resolved my six month long, post operative celibacy “problem,” as well as reminded me that yes, I do enjoy getting out of the house once in a while to socialize and, when held in the right hand, being on the receiving end of a single-tail whip. By the end of the BBQ, Andy was good naturedly groping the front of my friend’s khakis and commenting appreciatively about his “package.”

I’ve had more than my fair share of complications and drama during my various long and short term relationships, and although I haven’t been very good at casual sex since shortly after I achieved legal drinking age I also haven’t been completely successful with the monogamy thing. After my brief time on sexual ice and subsequent thaw, I realize that I still don’t know exactly what it is that I’m doing or want to do as far as matters of the heart are concerned, but I sure am glad to know that all of my various body bits still work after being sliced, diced and otherwise surgically altered.

I have had a mildly interesting assortment of objects inserted into a mildly interesting assortment of temporary and permanent body openings during my time on this planet, but I must confess (this is my Confessional, after all) that the most “interesting” thing I’ve ever had inserted into any of my orifices was the hormone releasing Merina IUD that my delightfully socially tolerant surgeon and gynecologist installed through my protesting cervix in order to discourage further complications from endometriosis.

There are people who will tell you that anal sex is a vile, nasty, sinful, unnatural practice that involves entering a part of the body meant exclusively as an exit. Those people have never had an IUD inserted into their uterus. I have. I’ll take the anal sex, thanks. I can do that more than once every five years without too much complaining. It wasn’t until I experienced the truly surreal sensation of having a T-shaped piece of plastic wedged inside of an organ I’d spent most of my adult life ignoring that the size of a woman’s uterus had any meaning to me. But now I realize precisely how small mine is.

Surreal cervical experiences aside, I’m delighted to report that everything seems to work fine, that I’m just as capable of getting myself into sticky situations as I ever was, that I’m looking forward to exploring some new territory and reporting back about it – and that I will have competed in the Ms. World Leather contest in Las Vegas by the time this column is read, which guarantees – win or lose – that I’ll have something very interesting to confess next month.

Related Websites:

Andy Mangels: www.andymangels.com

ISRC: www.rosecourt.org

Mirena IUD: www.mirena-us.com

Ms. World Leather: www.msworldleather.com