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The Wandering WebWhore is my personal blog. I'm a 30-something indie pornographer whose journal covers a variety of topics: mundane daily life, work-related reflection, sex stuff, current events, and more. MY SITE FEED 
(outdated) F.A.Q.s About this blog OUR INDIE PORN SITES:  My Personal Porn Site  My Boyfriend's Site  My Girlfriend's Site  My Menstruation Site  All our sites combined. 
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Excerpts from "The Wandering Webwhore" appear here: 
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AMATEUR PICPOSTS: Pics of hot blondes here! Pics of couples here! Pics of big tits here! Pics of nasty acts here!   Trixie's Friends    |
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Art, Numbers & Mediocrity (PICS)
I started taking piano lessons when I was about nine years old. My teacher, Joan, didn't believe in using metronomes and always had long, fancy nails even though pianists aren't supposed to. At some point during the first year of lessons, she told me that music is really all about MATH. No math = no music. A huge revelation for me as a kid. It's a big truth that's never left me. At first my feelings about it were a little conflicted; it was sort of stressful ("I'm so bad at fractions!"), but realizing that math is the foundation of music (or at least one doorway into building and understanding it) never sucked the romance or beauty out of it. It never made it dry to me. It can be invisible enough that you don't actually NEED to know it or think about it for it to be in there. That lesson primed me to notice as years went by that math and science are built into nature and art and our insides. That the basics of them are intuitive, like rhythm, but the more you know about the math and science of something, the better your music or art or appreciation of those things can be. Knowing that art is really science has been a solace to me -- art isn't reserved only for a few people who are divinely inspired. It can be orderly: accessed and created systematically. With simple formulas. With a wide variety of tools mixed with individual perspective, personality and tastes to make it seem unique and magical, disguising the numbers in the craft of it. ***** I shot a set of pictures of Delia wearing some hot Hello Kitty shorts on Friday night and the photos are all jacked up. I'm a long way from understanding the science of photography; I *like* numbers, but they don't stick in my head very well so even though I've read about how cameras work and how OUR camera works I still don't have it committed to memory or know how to manipulate light and settings quickly to achieve what I want. I have to just walk around and fiddle with things until I mostly-accidentally happen onto something lovely. Most of the good pictures I take are the product of luck and shooting A LOT without fully comprehending what I'm doing. I recognize what looks good and beautiful and erotic to me (or at least halfway decent) and what looks bad to me and have a few basic practices for making the former (especially in the "halfway decent" category) and avoiding the latter, but my technical skills are pretty basic.  All of the pics looked dark to me so I bumped the ISO up to 1000 or 2500, I forget now (hence the graininess) and the speed down to 25 or 30 -- they still looked dark for some reason; I was letting the camera auto-focus (selecting the area to focus on myself with these little movable box thingies; I forget what Nikon calls that function but it didn't seem to be working well on this particular night) and adjust the aperture itself until I decided to do a closeup and switched everything to manual (because it balks when we ask it to autofocus macros); suddenly everything was WAY TOO BRIGHT and I had to change the shutter speed. The only thing I can think of is that the camera wasn't doing a good job of automatically adjusting the aperture and when I switched to manual and adjusted it myself then everything changed. It sucked because we wanted these pics to be bright. The older I get, the more I see that MOST working artists -- writers, photographers, graphic designers, sculptors, painters, musicians, etc. -- are just people who've chosen to do that kind of work. That the only thing that sets them apart from the rest of us is the amount of time they put into their art and confidence they have in devoting themselves to it without worrying whether or not a jury of peers think they deserve to make money on it. Very few artists are people who actually possess something innate that the rest of us don't have; most of it is taking the time to learn and apply information that's available to everyone (or anyone with the resources to do a little research) and then investing money in the right tools and lots of time in practicing. Sometimes I think the most successful artists are the ones who are actually LESS gifted and too stupid/overconfident to recognize that there are other people (usually making zero dollars on their art) who are WAY more talented. Maybe the only way to be a successful "artist" is to NOT be great -- to not complicate shit with too much vision, originality, or diverse techniques and just work from simple formulas to make things that are easily recognizable and accessible to the masses. See also Adaptation. If your work brings other people pleasure does it really NEED to be super duper excellent? The older I get, the happier I am with shooting for mediocrity. Even mediocrity requires a lot of hard work (for me, at least). Mediocrity is attainable without being a given; you can stand out and make a decent living in a field simply by being one of the relative few to 1) choose that field, 2) commit to it for a number of years, and 3) make yourself known. All the better if you're willing to take emotional and financial risks and make sacrifices for your work/"art". The happier you are with mediocrity the wider your success. I've slowly shifted my focus of "pride" away from "talent" and pinned it on "work"; you can't be proud of having good taste or being born with certain attributes making you better suited than most to doing one job or another. Those are only things you can be THANKFUL for. The things you can actually be PROUD of are hard work, dedication and defying convention to choose happiness. To call yourself an artist as soon as you choose to be one -- to make it your job -- rather than waiting until you imagine other people think you are good enough to deserve that label. Those are the people I admire more and more, the ones who are brave & devoted enough to create some form of art (even if it's just fair to middlin') and are savvy enough to make it a business. I used to think having to work hard at something or take a lot of time to make something acceptable was something to be ashamed and embarrassed of. If it wasn't easy it meant I wasn't good at it. Now I realize that's total bullshit (even if I still FEEL that way sometimes). The strategic choices and commitments you make to invest work in things that make you happy, better, more skilled, or even just capable of seeing you should make a different choice (I've always believed that quitting is something to be proud of; that whole "quitters never win" line is such a crock of shit). The time you spend allowing yourself to suck ass -- IMMERSING yourself in sucking ass and slowly filling in the void of your ignorance with knowledge -- just so you can become mediocre at something you love and then keep working to try to improve upon that. Beyond mediocrity there are so few people who are actually able to recognize the difference between mediocrity and greatness, there's no reason to beat yourself up if you're not capable of becoming that elite. Being a "jack of all trades, master of none" ROCKS. It's fun, it's challenging, and I don't love any one thing enough to give up all the other stuff. So I really have to be satisfied with mediocrity, slow progress, and making balanced choices to devoting little bits of time here and there to different things I love. Like making flash cards to learn photography stuff. You're never too old for flash cards. I'm not, anyway. I am mediocre at so many things, and have managed to balance (with great mediocrity) such a gigantic shitload of different kinds of work that I deserve to be quite proud of myself and my extraordinary mediocrity. I feel so blessed to be in a position to dabble so widely. Lucky lucky lucky, and proud of myself for creating a notable percentage that luck by my choices. For recognizing my luck and exploiting it to the best of my limited ability.  Some of us are able to do our work just because we're lucky enough to have the resources to buy tools, to live in an environment filled with inspiration and/or to be close to people who make beautiful subjects and do most of the art/work for you. ***** I love arranging forkfuls of food. Ones where I have the perfect ratio of one thing to the other(s). Mashed potatoes to gravy to meat. Raisins to flakes. Heavens to Betsy. It doesn't have to be fancy, the formula just has to be right. Everything pleasingly arranged in relation to each other. I will never be a good cook because I don't want to practice how to be; that's Delia's thing. It's my job just to love eating, every day, tasting and swallowing over and over and saying thank you, honey.. And to figure out how to arrange camera settings like food on a fork, adjusting hole-sizes, timing mechanisms, and digitally tweaking things in perfect relation to the kind of light shining on my girlfriend. Labels: art, beauty standards, food, memories, music, my trans partner, photography, PHOTOS, sex work, values, webwhore insights 0 comments -  
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Thursday, January 01, 2009
Sliding into Home (PICS)
Bloggers and webwhores around the world are making "year in review" posts right now. I'm not very good at instantly recalling and ranking The Most Important Things That Happened Last Year (seriously, I'm not even capable of ordering food in a drive-through -- something every other moron in America is MORE than competent at). I do feel really excited about 2009, though. It's like the past four months have been a slow, gradual process of skill-building, cleaning-up, clarifying and prioritizing to prepare for a great new year/rest-of-my-life. Before I sum up my too-personal stuff, here's a picture of me from way back in February of 2002, before my members-only area opened, right around the time I met "my houseboy" before she became Delia:  And photos from a couple of my favorite shoots this year:   Probably the most important thing that happened in 2008 was we both started going to twelve step meetings. If I just said, "the most important thing that happened in 2008 was Delia stopped drinking" it might make more sense to people, but that really isn't the most important thing that happened. The most important thing for me (and equally important for our relationship) is that when she stopped drinking this time AND started going to meetings, I had to start getting my OWN shit together instead of thinking things were just hard because of her alcoholism. I sort of thought everything was perfect before EXCEPT for her drinking, but the month after she stopped? It totally wasn't perfect, because I had a complete meltdown. Obviously I know *I* am not perfect and I know a lot of the ways I'm an asshole (and will continue to be no matter how hard I sometimes try to stop being), but I really didn't have a plan or consistently work towards or ask for any help being a better, happier, healthier, nicer person. Working and worrying about other people (what they're THINKING, what they're DOING, what they EXPECT from me, how I think they're so fucking WRONG/fucked up, etc.) were my top priorities. I didn't really accept that me being a crazy asshole was/is my absolute biggest problem. They seem like a simple concepts to apply to life -- just worry about your OWN shit, don't try to control anyone/thing except yourself -- but no matter how much I know those things on a rational level, applying them on a daily basis is a struggle and going to meetings helps me with that in a way nothing else ever has before. Getting back on Ritalin has helped a lot, too. Another thing that's helping is making exercising a priority -- on December 5th I moved "exercising" to the top of my to-do list. I've exercised 21 days out of the past 29 (walking, dancing, stretching, DDRing, pilates, etc.). I need to keep reminding myself that my health is a bigger priority than work -- that taking care of myself IS my job and the foundation of doing everything else better. And being less of a crazy asshole. This year when I filed our 2007 taxes (late, in October) I also had to face that we didn't meet our money goals in 2008; like, our sales were almost exactly the same as in 2007 when my goal was to double it (not as insane as it sounds, especially given our growth rate in years past). It's not that I'm not thankful -- I know that lots of people made LESS money in 2008 than 2007 -- but there's really no excuse for us not to be making more money. Yes, it's hard. But it's at the point now where we really NEED to, and that challenge/brink-of-disaster is good for me because it focuses me. I've been pushing everything to the sidelines that is not an efficient way of meeting our sales goals and promising myself not to pick those things up again until our goals are met and I can *justify* doing all those extra things and have the *resources* to do them well. We also tried harder in 2008 to take days off. We didn't succeed in doing that consistently/regularly, so I should make that a resolution for this year. In general 2008 taught me that I can do more work better by not trying to do so MUCH of it and by working on improving myself. In between meetings, exercise, Ritalin, fewer goals in my field of vision/better priorities, I felt really good about taking down the 2008 calendar and hanging up 2009. Everything feels like it's falling into place and I feel more patient about the time that's taking than I ever have before, and massively excited about the way Delia's and my relationship with each other is evolving and deepening -- our need to spend non-work time with each other and making/hearing music, fucking, laughing, kissing, talking, cleaning house, playing games, etc. is another huge motivator to push other stuff off the table so we can just ENJOY each other. I am still going to be an asshole in 2009, but I will be a healthier asshole with a more flexible pucker. I know I won't STOP blowing hot, rank air but I will concentrate on cooling it down and remind myself to focus on cleaning myself up from the inside out to reduce my stench. I will be a more kissable asshole in 2009, and if all goes well perhaps I will be wiping myself with money by the time 2010 rolls around. Yes, an asshole can dream. Labels: accomplishments, attention deficit disorder, goals, health, PHOTOS, priorities, ritalin, thanksgiving, therapy, values 1 comments -
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Trixie on the Phone
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Grrrrr
A post made by Trixie on her phone. MP3 File ***** Update: I've been on the phone with our cable company for the past 21 minutes, just sitting on hold. We're not set up to do our shows in the bedroom on the dsl (which we haven't set up a network for to switch our other machines to when shit like this happens). I'm pretty furious and seem to have had a string of bad luck with my Rude shows that has nothing to do with Rude (usually), but just coincidental tech problems like today. I hope it will get sorted out / back up in time for Delia's show tonight, but if this goes on much longer we'll have to call tonight a scratch and hopefully the smoke will stop pouring out of my ears and we'll find a way to enjoy the night and/or be productive some other way. I'm really sorry for those of you who were looking forward to the show; I was looking forward to masturbating, too, but now I just want to kill someone. 1 comments -
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Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Late last night we fucked while I fondled my new toys: Delia's growing boobs. I dare you to not be jealous of me for getting to play with emerging, swollen boobies while getting fucked by your girlfriend's she-cock. Some people might call it convenient. I call it "barely legal". And myself? I call myself "lucky" because right now she's making us a Christmas meatloaf. Food and fucking -- what more could you ask for on Christmas? Simultaneous orgasms? Well we had those, too. ***** I love taking pictures of this bird feeder in our backyard at different times of day/year (no, we don't put bird food in it; it's a relic left behind by past owners):  Happy holidays to everybody -- here's to celebrating in as many safe, happy, and (mostly) healthy ways as possible with big loads of hot gravy on top! Labels: arousal, boobs, food, my trans partner, nature, orgasm, Pacific Northwest, PHOTOS, plants, SEX, snow, thanksgiving 0 comments -
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Saturday, December 20, 2008
Shiny in the Snow - PICS
These pictures of me in a blonde wig outside in the snow with a blue sky turned out almost exactly how I wanted them to be:  I'll be posting the full gallery of over one hundred pics for our members next week.  Tonight it's my turn to be the photographer shooting a Christmas gallery and video of Delia. We're off to a late start due to the severe winter storm warning we're under here in western Washington; it just started snowing again and is supposed to keep going for the next five days. In our town we're being hit by stuff coming in from the west AND the south, so it might get really windy. Don't be surprised if our voyeur cams go down and you don't hear from us for a time -- it will just mean we lost one or both of our internet connections and/or power. The streets are already coated with ice so Delia made sure we went to the store to stock up on everything we'll need if we can't get out for a week. Of course we'll still be able to walk, but I got a blister on the bottom of my foot a couple of days ago when we had to go downtown and thought it safer to walk than drive; my Payless snow boots are cheap and don't fit me well so I don't want to have to trudge for miles to lug home heavy groceries. We're staying home alone for Christmas; I'll miss seeing our nephew, but I think it's better for us and our whole family if we're not on the road. Actually, I'm really missing Delia's family right now; I love spending Christmas at her parent's house. It's the only place I've been in the past six years where I don't feel compelled to work. I plow through books, I masturbate in bed, we come down with colds and flu, and somehow it's just a huge, relaxing vacation (for me, at least -- unfortunately, Delia isn't as aroused by our bedroom being located right next door to her parents as I am). Labels: arousal, body hair, family, fetishes, hair, masturbation, memories, nature, Pacific Northwest, PHOTOS, Seattle, snow, TURN ONS 1 comments -
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Thursday, December 18, 2008
I Miss Majel Already
Everyone's been talking about Bettie Page's recent death. I felt almost guiltily unphased by it, especially considering that I cried when I heard Bernie Mac died. Tonight I burst into tears upon reading that Majel Barrett (Gene Roddenberry's wife) passed away.  I'm a latecomer to Star Trek; even though the original series did make an impression on me as a little kid, it was of alien go-go boot sexiness and little else. It was only after Delia and I watched Trekkies that I got drawn in and we watched all of Next Generation from beginning to end. Gene and Majel Roddenberry's work and values have come to mean a lot to me; I'm thankful and inspired by the positive and progressive ways Star Trek depicts gender, sexuality, aging and ethics. Whenever I see Majel on tv, a burst of love, appreciation and adoration swells up inside of me and I SCREAM it to her.  Her characters are inspirations to me and the work she and Gene Roddenberry did together and legacy they've left behind are models of working relationships, vision, humanitarianism and hope that make me feel richer, happier, and better about myself and other people. We'll miss you, Majel. Labels: celebrity, death, emotions, inspiration, mortality, relationships, spiritual issues, thanksgiving, values 2 comments -
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Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Snow!
 I've never been a big fan of snow, but now that I work at home it's growing on me since I don't have to drive in it. Living in the Seattle area we don't get a lot of snow so it's always cause for excitement around here. It doesn't usually last long, either, so I'm really happy we had a chance to go out and shoot in it.  The window of opportunity for snowy, seasonal pics is actually still open; it's been snowing most of today. Here's a shot of our dog from one of our spycams a few hours ago:  Anyway, the rest of the photos are up for my members and we've got two outdoor spycams running today; we're going to walk downtown through the snow now to run some errands.  Labels: body hair, dog, nature, Pacific Northwest, pets, PHOTOS, seasons, Seattle, spycams 1 comments -
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Sex Workers, Rights and the Tanking Economy
Before I post a bunch of frivolous softcore-in-the-Seattle-snow pics today, I want to at least mention that today's an important one: The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. When the economy is in the shitter (the direction it's headed right now) people are MORE judgmental and resentful about how much other people are paid and for what kind of work; that's a recipe for even more violence against sex workers. Lots of perpetrators of violence against sex workers explain that their crimes are justified because they shouldn't have to pay for sex -- the woman (or sometimes man) and the work s/he's charging him for are not worthy of payment and/or should be punished for thinking she is. Check out this guy who said a prostitute put her head in his plastic bag by mistake when he wanted his $100 back. For trying to kill her he'll only get a few months in the slammer. It's not going too far to say that beating, raping, exploiting, infecting, killing, stealing from sex workers and/or refusing to abide by their boundaries is covertly state-sanctioned -- the government says sex workers don't have the right to charge money for their services in most places. Not only do they not have the right to charge money, they are CRIMINALS if they do so. In some places in the United States you can be arrested simply for carrying too many condoms -- it's intent to sell access to your body (which you have no right to do, and if you intend to flout the law in this way you deserve to expose yourself to disease and pregnancy)! You can be charged with a crime in many places just for advising other sex workers ABOUT sex work. The government might not have a bounty on sex workers and we all might SAY that killing them is going too far, but it's a pretty fucking mixed message. While most of my own work as a webwhore is legal (I say "most" because some of it could easily fall under the nebulous definition of "obscenity" - that and a couple of other things I can think of could land me in prison if the Department of Justice or other unsavory elements chose to target me) and I feel fairly safe doing this work (not just safe for a whore, but even safer relative to women with straight jobs), there are still more than enough people who resent me and women like me for making our livings this way. People who spew hatred and threaten violence that all falls under the category of, "BITCH! YOU DO NOT DESERVE MONEY FOR WHAT YOU DO & YOU DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED FOR EVEN SUGGESTING ANYONE PAY YOU FOR THIS!! I will *take* by force what you deny me for free." I'm willing to bet these messages will only increase and intensify in the months and years to come as people get poorer, hungrier, and angrier. There's a march in DC going on right now. FurryGirl is there and taking pictures like this one:  The demand on the banner to "STOP SHAMING US TO DEATH" is powerful, especially in conjunction with the message that "ONLY RIGHTS CAN STOP THE WRONGS". Violence against sex workers is made too easy because of wrongheaded laws that make some people's versions of "immorality" criminal. It's broader than the moral or religious issues, though: it's about class and gender -- specifically denying women (1) ownership of their bodies and (2) the right to charge people to access it (3) within boundaries each woman defines for herself. Connect the dots in the bigger picture to shaky/compromised abortion rights, our continued unwillingness to recognize parenthood as real work worthy of payment, and our refusal to protect natural resources like WATER (where ownership by one entity should be really fucking hard to claim) from unsustainable corporate exploitation compared to our insistence upon denying individual women opportunities to profit from their own individual bodies (where self-ownership should be pretty fucking OBVIOUS/undeniable, especially when you consider how much money male pro-athletes make abusing their bodies for our entertainment and no laws deny them the RIGHT to exploit their bodies in those damaging ways***) -- it seems pretty obvious that denying rights to sex workers is part of a bigger agenda to deny women opportunities to profit from work that is mostly performed by women because we are at a natural biological ADVANTAGE to perform it. Basically? It's about making sure women are only punished for their gender rather than economically rewarded for it. It will be a cold day in hell when someone goes violently vigilante on the asses of Wall Street executives and all the corporate fat cats and bankers getting bailed out for fucking us over financially; there are always loopholes to guarantee their "right" to be multi-fucking millionaires at our expense, but there are sure to be plenty of whores killed by men who get the message loud and clear from our government(s) (and all of us who tell them we LIKE our laws just like this) that there IS no loophole for a woman who thinks she's entitled to earning a few bucks for a blowjob. God forbid we put a cap on the exorbitant amount of ill-gotten money men "make"; instead let's keep making sure the whores don't get out of pocket thinking their dirty pussies are worth a thin fucking dime. Discriminatory laws against sex work and women's work in general don't just encourage and facilitate physical violence, some people would say those laws and their applications are themselves acts of violence -- when you make it next-to-impossible for someone to work, when you take away her income, when you stigmatize someone by slapping a criminal record or a special stripper/whore license on her that will limit her job opportunities in the future, when you eat up her time in court and behind bars, when you make her pay fines, when you make her vulnerable to blackmail by thieves and rapists both in and out of uniform, that can at LEAST be called a hostile and dangerous violence-breeding atmosphere. Whether or not you believe Deborah Jeane Palfrey's death was a suicide, you have to recognize that she (and possibly other women connected to her case) would not be dead now if women had the right to do sex work. Who needs the Green River Killer to cleanse the country of garbage as long as we have the government to ruin and destroy the lives of sex workers? And when I say "government", I don't mean that the rest of us have clean hands. Voters are the ones who had an opportunity in San Francisco last month to decriminalize prostitution and guess what? THEY DIDN'T. We're not talking about old laws no one enforces anymore, we're talking about active BULLSHIT that just keeps on trucking. Yes, it's impossible for me to calmly deliver a moderate, easy-to-understand argument about sex worker rights and reducing violence perpetrated against sex workers. I'm sorry for that. I feel guilty for not doing more for sex workers as a group -- for not being more of an activist, for not staying better informed, for not being a more coherent educator. As with any minority suffering discrimination and persecution, it's a challenge to have time to earn a living in that discriminatory atmosphere AND be an agent of change. That's why discrimination and marginalization WORK SO WELL; when people are underprivileged and denied rights granted to others, they 1) lack the resources to effectively fight for change, and 2) can't be completely honest or open about their own stories without fear of reprisals and punishment. It's true that I feel relatively safe as a webwhore, but I said RELATIVELY safe, not just-plain-SAFE. I realize I am VERY lucky, but still vulnerable. I hate that my blog entries on this subject wind up preaching to the choir and are probably ignored or misunderstood by everyone else, but seriously -- this whore needs to spend the rest of the day trying to make money rather than blowing off steam just to hear her head rattle. With the poor economy and my own situation of having gone deeply into credit card debt to finance our business, I do have a heightened awareness of how my own safety and standing in society is threatened even more by the fact that I'm a sex worker and therefore considered disposable and fair game for scapegoating, at the very least. I know from my OWN feelings of jealousy towards people who are economically privileged and resentment towards those protected enough by their gender and class to get away with huge scams that are considered legit ways to fuck people for money that we all can become very, ummmm, mean-spirited when the chips are down. I wish I could wrap this up with a big Christmas bow that would change the world for sex workers or at least make people WANT to see that happen, but I'm at a loss for how to do that so I will simply say THANK YOU to the people who are out their lobbying for change on behalf of me and other sex workers today. ***there are definitely class (and race) issues at work that allow mostly poor men of color to beat each other senseless in boxing rings and suffer tons of injuries in other pro sports with regulations that do very little to protect them; by bringing this up I'm not saying boxing or other sports should be illegal or even necessarily more heavily regulated -- I only mention it as an interesting comparison to sex work. It illustrates the irrationally contradictory double standards when it comes to women's bodies versus men's bodies and what kind of work they can put them to for how much money. Labels: class, fears, gender issues, money, politics, race, rants, sex work, true crime 3 comments -
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Friday, December 12, 2008
Deep Water
Last night we stayed up way too late, but it was worth it to catch up a little on something we haven't had enough of lately: SEX. Watching/listening to Daniel Lanois (see below) put me into a magic place, and reaching over to feel Delia's semi-hard cock made fucking her totally irresistible. I alternated between stroking her cock and feeling her swollen, growing boobs before I got on her and came two times to her one. The whole thing was super-intense, partly because it's been a couple of weeks but mostly just because it IS. It's super windy here today with a projected snow storm rolling in; I think we lost power last night so most of our cams went (and stayed) down until we got up. Don't be surprised if it happens some more over the next week. I *hope* it won't interfere with the shows and chat we have scheduled this weekend, but if it does? You'll know weather is the reason. Enjoy the full moon tonight, if you can. It will probably be clouded over here. I'm going to make myself keep exercising because it's paying off after a week of being consistent; I feel a lot better already. I did fall off the wagon yesterday and tried to tell myself getting a massage was AS GOOD as getting exercise, but sex and backrubs really aren't all that aerobic so if I want to keep feeling good, I need to do some physical work tonight. I have galleries to post for members, but honestly I don't like them enough to post them right now so I'll put something else up and we'll shoot something better. Labels: boobs, health, inspiration, music, my trans partner, nature, Pacific Northwest, SEX, VIDEO 0 comments -
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Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Cutbacks
You don't need me to tell you that times are financially tough right now for a lot of people. You might be curious, though, whether or not recessions and looming depressions have an effect on our porn site sales. The answer? Yes, sales have been a little harder for us to make but overall I feel much more secure than I would in almost any other industry. The main sign we've seen that people's wallets are thin is that we get more denied credit cards. My main financial concerns right now are not about falling sales, they're just about having finally reached our limit, unfortunately right at the time when banks and everyone else have reached theirs. I try not to feel a sense of shame or failure about my debt load regardless of how our country tells us that we little people are to blame for overextending ourselves or for being given loans and lines of credit we somehow didn't deserve. Our only mistake was being born poor while extremely unscrupulous banking bigwigs are bailed out for fucking people anally with insanely high interest rates. Example: it cracks me up that Citibank not only gets away with raising my interest rate and leveling late charges against me for sending a payment in on time that I accidentally wrote for fifty-seven cents less than the minimum payment that month (YES I have written them letters to no avail), but taxpayers get to foot the bill to save their fucking asses. I'm getting off track. Point is, after filing our taxes in October (yes, totally late) and maxing ourselves out like crazy we simply need to make more sales. Really, there is no excuse for us not to be making much more money at this point except that we tend to focus more on keeping our members happy than on actually, you know, FINDING MORE MEMBERS. It would be nice if we could do it all, but at this point we need to cut back on some things and rearrange others, at least until we meet some financial goals. So here are a couple of changes we/I are making: *REALISTIC NUMBER OF WEBCAM SHOWS EVERY OTHER WEEK. Delia and I have been doing an insane number of shows for too many years: around twenty a month between the two of us. Most girls or couples with sites like ours who actually do live webcam shows do one or two a week, so maybe three to eight shows a month. Frankly it was sucking way too much sexual energy out of our relationship, leaving us very little free time to be spontaneous or go on shooting sprees or, you know, take a day or two off here and there. We're now scheduling a couple days of webcam shows a couple times a month/every other week. It still averages out to at least two shows a week this way, but that's still less than what we have been doing and will give us more breathing room in-between to shoot videos and have recreational sex with each other. Doing fewer camshows will also open up time to promote our sites in other ways; the truth is that the cam networks stopped being good places to get new members a long time ago. Even the girls who put on great shows and bend over backwards to be great orgasmic little entertainers do not make great sales because of those webcam shows. I will save explaining why for a different blog entry, but suffice to say right now there are more efficient ways of bringing in new sales; at a time like now we simply need to be more efficient. *FEWER HOURS IN CHAT I really really love getting to know our members and think an active chatroom with a readily-available hostess is a really awesome feature to have on a porn/spycam site. I've had many awesome conversations in chat and gotten to know people I consider friends. Unfortunately, I probably spent way too much time in spycam chat over the years when I should have been focusing more on marketing my site. Now it's at the point where I really don't have a choice and need to spend those hours promoting our sites (especially Delia's because it outsells mine three to one). I hate to say it, but I just don't have enough members to justify scheduling so many hours in chat. I've tried to find ways to make it work, and I feel like the same small handful of people are coming in just so I don't feel bad sitting in there alone. Combined with being burned out from all the camshows and being under pressure in other ways, I'm also just not as energetic an entertainer as I once was, anyway, so it's probably not a very enticing feature anymore. I am, however, continuing to pay for our members-only chatroom (the plugin is only $12.50 a month, but still) and am popping in there every so often and scheduling chats here and there. I've also added a separate twitter feed on the spycam, chat and shows pages to notify people of upcoming chats and shows and spycam stuff. I've made a goal for myself that once Delia has 750 members and I have 500 members, I will add 15+ hours of chat per month back into the schedule as long as we can maintain those numbers and people seem to enjoy the chats. I know that 1250 members sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things it's inexcusable that we don't have that many and more members right now. When I see the way other porn sites have tons of members and offer so much less than we do, it really makes me mad at myself because there's no reason we cannot be comfortable, debt-free and have the resources we need to make our sites better. I just can't justify doing as much as we've been doing and staying so deeply in debt. I'm getting too old for it and it's taking too much of a toll on me. I need to buckle down and sell the fuck out of our sites, especially Delia's because she has much less competition. *LOOSEY-GOOSEY UPDATES For about five years I was very rigid about my update schedule for members, posting something new every week, and for many years on the exact same DAY each week. I still feel like that's the ideal way to do things (scheduled updates one or more times a week, depending on whether or not the site has anything else going for it). Once we made our sites all-access (join one you get them all) I tried to relax a little on that and am finally feeling less anal about it. Now I am focused on our network of sites added ten or more new things each month, which isn't two hard considering that we have DeliaCD, TastyTrixie, AmberLily, SpyOnUs and TrixiesHouseboy (which is paralyzed right now, but I digress). Still, I have been asking too much of myself and not really giving myself the opportunities to excel at what I do best and WANT to do most at any given time. When I see other sites that I think are great (and so do their members) and they don't get all crazy freaking out on themselves for not updating like clockwork, I have to think I'm just sabotaging myself with self-criticism and essentially also disrespecting the work my colleagues do; if it's good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for me? This was especially apparent to me when AmberLily joined our network; it was a sudden thing, so we didn't plan on it by having a bunch of our own content queued up ready to go while we did the things we needed to do to help get her site up on our server and attached to us. It wasn't that anything I did was particularly HARD, but it did take a lot of hours making phone calls, designing a tour, negotiating stuff, etc. Lots of little things that made me happy to do, but meant I didn't have time to do other things. I *should* have said, "hey members! This month I won't be posting new updates but AmberLily's joining us and you will have her entire site to explore to make up for it!" But I didn't do that. From now on, I NEED to do that; realize I can't do it all, and be proud of what I *do* do, and satisfied that it is enough instead of thinking all will be lost unless I run myself into the ground. The opposite is proving to be true (duh): all will be lost if I continue to run myself ragged. I'm totally out of gas, which is sad especially when there are a number of women who would like to join our network of sites and I simply don't have time and energy to invest in working with them right now. There are tons of things I've neglected to do that I need to get taken care of, like redesigning the free areas and blogs for pretty much all of our paysites. How many years have I had the same confusing design on this blog and my site that is now totally outdated with pages of broken things, old pictures, etc.? It's just unacceptable. And no, I am not listening to anybody who gives me shit about all my other little "projects" and how if I didn't waste time with them I could finish all these neglected necessaries. Bullshit. If I didn't allow myself to go off on tangents, then half of the reward of working for myself would be totally fucking DELETED. Whatever makes me want to do those things is the same thing that makes me good at the things people PAY for. Oh, and speaking of what people pay for, I still really miss doing phone sex, private shows and the potential to do other one-on-one stuff; another set of things I'd like to mix back into my life soon or when we meet some of those money goals. Basically I am *considering* posting fewer updates to the TastyTrixie members area for a few months or until I feel/look healthier. Lately I've been doubling up on them/posting "late", mostly because I haven't been happy with a lot of my content and sit on updates until I have something "better" to go with them. In fact, that's what I've been doing with a set of pictures that I edited this week and really kind of hate. Mostly I guess I need to stop making promises and just focus on making content. And even more than that, SALES. Note: it's not that our content isn't good enough to make sales or that we don't have enough of it or that our members-only areas are lacking; that isn't the problem at all. It's simply that the webmasters promoting most porn sites don't know how to promote us, or have never heard of us because we have no advertising budget, or it's just not worth it to them to promote us because we can't pay them as much as these big sites do (yet another subject for another blog entry) or we don't give them enough free content in the format they like with a lot of bells and whistles and things to make it super-easy (I totally understand why this puts us at a disadvantage). I know this is a really long post and maybe a total bore to most people, but I feel like I needed to communicate this stuff in writing and by posting it, make a commitment to it myself. Long story short, we need to focus on meeting some attainable, yet very immediately necessary sales goals. I have to close two of my credit card accounts before they raise the interest rates to some even-more god-awful amount; this shit is getting down to the wire and we simply have to stop living on the edge. ***** One of my favorite books about "unschooling" tells readers that when you allow a young person to escape the lock-step of traditional schools, the person usually needs three months or more to get it out of their system and have their natural curiosity well up enough to be motivated to take advantage of other learning opportunities. Note: there are many things I love about traditional schools AND alternative approaches to education; I'm not knocking schools, just using this as an example. As I've alluded to in recent posts, making great life-changing decisions doesn't always yield immediate relief and results and instant accomplishments; I've been pretty exhausted and overwhelmed on a bunch of different levels so I really don't expect everything to magically be PERFECT and I hope my members are patient and understand that too, though I totally understand if people feel like canceling and perhaps coming back later when I have more to offer. I'm really looking forward to getting back to making our spycams more entertaining, focusing on Delia's and my relationship to each other, and feeling better about my body. Today's the seventh day in a row I've exercised and I know by the time the new year rolls around I'm going to feel a million percent better (if the holidays don't kill me ;). Labels: announcements, body image, boundaries, chat, fears, goals, health, money, PORNOGRAPHY, priorities, spycams, webcam shows, webwhore insights, work 0 comments -
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Monday, December 08, 2008
Schtuff
Let me toss some tgirl-on-tgirl porn at you before I get all personal and diary-ish(click for free pics & sample vid):  This is my favorite photo in the samples and in general that whole shoot was really hot to watch, plus I love that the resulting porn is both explicit and very sensual. I need to work on my skills as a photographer shooting people other than Delia, though. With Mandy and AmberLily I didn't do a good job of stopping them and asking them to hold "poses", so as a result there were lots of blurry and awkward shots -- good ones, too, but could've been better. We're still getting used to our new camera which is FAST, but since we don't shoot with a flash or a lot of light we still have to MODEL semi-slowly even though it's tempting when you hear the shutter flying along to dance fluidly along. ***** Life is good -- there are lots of things going on with me which are mostly connected with making a concerted effort to have LESS things going on and focus on a few high priority things. Right now my personal priorities are: -exercising consistently (today will be five days in a row) -eating less sugar and starches -going to twelve step meetings & getting healthier emotionally and spiritually -cutting back on a few things to make room for a) making money more efficiently and b) doing more things that I love The past couple of years my body has become more and more of a challenge for me to feel good about, mostly because I never got into the habit of taking care of it except for getting enough sleep. With the added pressure (and wake-up-calls) of trying to get pregnant but not being able to, it's gotten to the point where I feel really shitty with a litany of symptoms and complaints and hypochondriac fantasies. Long story short, I need to put myself and my health first before everything (and everybody) else. A lot of times I sacrifice my own needs and desires to work which really is stupid because I can't *do* this kind of work very well when my body feels like shit and I don't provide myself with pleasure on all levels. I can barely stand to look at myself which is, ummm, pretty counterproductive for shooting porn (and editing/posting/selling it myself where I have to look at myself and love myself to do a good job). It's not that everything looks shitty, but seriously -- it's not only difficult for me to bend over to tie my shoes these days, it's PHYSICALLY PAINFUL. My guts fucking hurt. Before people rush to simple judgments like, "duh! That's what happens when you sit on your ass all day", etc. let me offer a little perspective and extend some leniency to myself; there are definitely some hormonal problems contributing to my issues (all of the thyroid / infertility / depression / migraine / too-much-testosterone stuff and more all connected in a which-came-first/chicken-egg circle of insanity) plus the stuff we've been going through with alcoholism that no one has really been aware of or how it's been effecting us; *I* haven't even been aware of how much of my energy was going into trying to cope with it. One of the unexpected bonuses of Delia getting sober is that I got to enter recovery too. Only I totally didn't anticipate how hard it would be or that I would totally fucking freak out (which I did, surprisingly, really fall-the-fuck apart the first month and couldn't really understand why when I thought I would just feel relieved and everything would be bliss and perfection). Now that Delia is sober and I'm not constantly thinking about her and trying to control her drinking, I'm left with the way bigger, scarier challenge and problem of mySELF and my own fucked-upedness. Patterns of behavior and sickness that I had before Delia and I ever even met. I feel really optimistic, excited and fortunate right now, but I also feel like I need a lot of space and time and patience to get healthy in more ways than one. It takes more than a week or a month or three months or a year to feel relief, to figure out what to change (and what IS changing whether you want it to or not), to adapt, and to grow into new ways of doing things. I'm kind of tired and have a lot of stuff to process and let go of so just mending my body, our relationship and going to meetings right now is enough to keep me very occupied. I'd say that I'm sorry I don't have more left over to spread around and to keep doing all the things I was trying to do, but I'm not sorry. I'm happy to be focused on what's important. Note: I'm leaving comments open for people who want to remark on the Delia & Mandy shoot or those who have their own personal sharing/relating on the subjects I talked about, but I usually do not feel helped by comments containing unsolicited advice, analysis of me/us/our lives and/or criticism even when I know they're well-intentioned. Labels: body image, depression, drugs, health, my trans partner, PHOTOS, PORNOGRAPHY, priorities, relationships, spiritual issues, therapy, TURN ONS, VIDEO, webwhore insights, work 3 comments -
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Thursday, December 04, 2008
There's a First Time for Everything
The weirdest thing just happened to me; I wanted to read poetry. I finished breakfast and wanted something else, which is normal, but rare that I know exactly what it is. Today I realized POEMS were exactly what I wanted. Or just one good poem. That is fucking bizarre, let me tell you. In all of my thirty-five years I've never thought to myself, "a poem would really hit the spot right now". NEVER. We have tons of books in our house, but only a few (less than five, plus a whole bunch of bibles which kind of count, but not for what I wanted today) containing poetry. We have some Rumi, which I've gone to before so I guess "never" was a little bit of an exaggeration, but would have been accurate if I'd qualified the poetry I wanted as contemporary. It's not that I've never read poetry and enjoyed it, but I was usually forced into it or stumbled there accidentally. I've just never been like, "I NEED POEMS NOW! MUST FIND ME THE POEMS!" Huh. Note: I still have zero desire to read poetry online or via any electronic device, unless maybe it's listening to an .mp3 or audio book. Skinny paperbacks are preferable. Going to keep an eye out next time I'm at a bookstore. Recs are welcome. Labels: books 4 comments -
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