i hang out over there now

As mentioned below, pornocation was a project that had a beginning and an end. But I am always working on new things, including this:

xobs

I hope that new people will still have a look at pornocation since it was a neat little thing to do and write about. The xobs blog will have much more variety, and I'll try to keep it un-boring. Please come visit. It's neat over there!

xo
bs

buenos noches pornocation

I don't know where to put this, but I feel like I should say it out loud. I don't think this blog gets much traffic, so I reckon it's not too much of a commitment to say it here, but maybe it will also fall upon the right eyes, to whomever they belong.

pornocation 2007 is over. I don't think I really experienced that until now, and I've been here as a Feck employee for four months. pornocation was about motion, was about rapidity and evolution, was about consistent self-challenge and even disruption. It was blunt and it was abrupt and it was intense.

When you are new to a place, it is difficult to believe that you are really there, and it is difficult to identify yourself with your surroundings. This is why we find ourselves looking out at Chicago and imagining it's Amsterdam, or back-floating in the Pacific whilst we're ferrying 'cross the Mersey. (Apologies.) I think that this feeling of transition, of liminality, of shifting perspectives between 'home' and 'away', has been pretty consistent since pornocation began. I'm not saying that those things won't continue to occur, but I think it's going to shift down a gear or two; it has to.

Some things have been hard. Like finding my way around this new existence. Attempting to be self-contained. All these new people - and what are they going to think of me?! A bit of sexual overkill, a bit of sexual frustration, a bit of sexual psychoanalysis. What the hell is a sausage roll, and who is going to give me hugs?

Of course you think about bailing in a situation like this - I imagine jumping a container ship and going seafaring once and for all! - and of course that is unwise. But I really must say that, despite whatever the anxiety-of-the-moment might be, I am affirmed in my desire to support these websites with my various sorts of labour. I believe in what we are doing, and I feel that we answer to the ethical challenges posed to a sex-positive 'online erotica' (read: 'internet porn') company in the best way we know how. We evolve necessarily and we try to stay in check. I get to meet and talk to so many of the folks who contribute their sexualities and desires and statements to the sites, and nothing feels better than when what we do has helped them in some way, or that we made good of something they were uncertain about. I also think that a lot of the members are eager to create sex-positive erotic spaces, and they give much more than just their subscription dollars to the creation of those spaces. I love what we do, and I love helping out.

Thanks, everyone. pornocation est finis.

Oh, and here's a picture, which makes everything much more exciting:

goodbye california

when i woke up yesterday, i looked out the window and this is what i saw.

califuckinfornia:

i'll miss you, you're pretty and smell nice. thanks for everything.

xo
bs

ps. you're so hot

introducing the extra-fancy Ms Pants

I recently had the pleasure of working with an extraordinary lady of ladies: Ms Pants. Someday many of you will also take pleasure in Ms Pants, as long as you pay money to ISM or BA at the appropriate times (which will be announced emphatically everwhere by me when they approach).

I met Ms Pants again for the first time when I picked her up at 9 am for what turned out to be a 14-hour porno adventure. Several years ago, Ms Pants and I shared awkward conversation over a few Red Stripes in a bar in Pittsburgh with a 'mutual friend', but our interaction was limited and perhaps not under the best conditions. Luckily, we are both total myspace whores, and began to carry out a torrid myspace affaire over the years since our first awkward beers. Ms Pants is tremendously awkward, as am I, so it was a match made in...um, myspace.

Ms Pants is also fabulously well-to-do. And a Leo, which apparently has nothing to do with anything.

One of the things that really fascinates me about Ms Pants is her knack for self-documentation. One cool thing about email friendships is that you are constantly being self-reflexive and self-representational, and the craft you exercise there can be quite revealing to the person who's reading all of your dirty secrets. One thing I can definitely say about Ms Pants is that there is just so very much there to represent, and I really love(d) the whole unwrapping-of-layers that is getting to know her.

Knowing her proclivities for self-documentation and her sexy queer politics and her variety of camera-faces, and because she asked me loads of questions about how one might go about getting naked on the internet, I felt that Ms Pants would be an excellent contributor to the sites I work for, so I told her that if she didn't get naked on camera for me, I'd quit being friends with her. I also offered her facon, which sweetened the deal a bit, as she didn't really seem to care about my threat of cancelled friendship.

Ms Pants happens to love facon (see below).

So we agreed to spend an entire day together making porno, starting with haggard breakfast and coffee. Our plan was to explore the unexplored territory of someplace in West Virginia and get her naked in the great outdoors and gala-vant all over the goddamn place. And that's just what we did. We began with our planned haggard breakfast at The Q Gay, and we ordered the same thing because we're so ladylike. And it was really cheap because in Pittsburgh breakfast is no more than $8.00. Ever.

Then we went to check out her desired Agony location, which was a 70s Porndiscospandexpalace in which her current crush locates her bed and personal effects and collection of naked polaroids. I shall call this crush Admiral Wastehammer, though I have not obtained permission and may be subject to legal repercussions. I'm just that racy. So, at Admiral Wastehammer's house, there is a door, and when that door is open, there is light, and when that light is shining on Ms Pants, she is pretty, and when she is pretty, she is masturbating, or some other logical conclusion. Unfortunately, when that door is open, there is also construction happening across the street, and in several other places in the neighbourhood, and there are builders going in and out and talking in indecipherable Pittsburgh accents about jaggers and chipchopped ham, and when a lady such as Ms Pants is trying to Agonise just on the other side of that door, there must be a lookout. So Admiral Wastehammer and I got cold coffee and books (though both of us can no longer read due to our bilingualism) and pretended to read them while we played lookout and thought about our mutual friend Ms Pants doing her dirty, dirty business while we were pretending to be literate. One of the builders asked us whether or not we happened to be starting a neighbourhood book club, which of course we weren't because we cannot read, but we told him we were so he would stop talking to us and so that Agony subscribers wouldn't have to listen to him talk any more. Anyway, who would start a book club on the sidewalk in the middle of a Pittsburgh winter? Jagoff.

Anyway, Ms Pants did something so sinful I can't even talk about it here, and I was really nervous the whole time about background noise and the light and whether I had framed things exactly right and whether I would fired before I even started my job and whether or not she hated the experience. But I played all cool and shit, because I'm from Pittsburgh.

The next item on our agenda was to drive to someplace, West Virginia for an ISM session in the snowy woodsiness. I was thrilled about this, because I love to travel and I love to drive and I love to see things I've never seen before, and I love to do those things even more when they're in the name of porno. Admiral Wastehammer was so intrigued by our porno morning that she wanted to come along for our porno afternoon and evening, so she slapped on some spandex (well, she already had it on, but i wanted to use that phrase, so imagine that she didn't) and we got her some Subway and off we went on the BIGGEST ADVENTURE OF OUR LIVES. Yeah, seriously.

The drive was pretty fantastic - lots of winding, narrow backroads with railroad tracks and a creek along with us for the ride. Snowy yards, old farmhouses, crazy people in camoflage jackets and 'NO MA'AM' t-shirts, little springs flowing down the rocks alongside the road, and tons of other awesomenesses that I would have photographed if we weren't running out of daylight and on a porno mission. I'm sure r. would have been pissed if I turned in a folio of cows instead of Ms Pants in various states of undress. He's really picky.

Admiral Wastehammer is the Jesus of rockhard rock, and a mountain climber, and knows Katie Doody.

When we finally arrived at our desired location, we peed in a sink in a half-built eco-house and began along our merry way. Both Admiral Wastehammer and I have similar degress of desire to see Ms Pants nude (for very different reasons, obviously), so it was our luckiest day. We hiked around West Virginia hillsides, climbed trees, ate poisonous berries, killed salmon with spears, found an abandoned oil rig, got muddy, orienteered, and healed a small bird's broken wing and taught it to fly, all while Ms Pants got naked and cold and documented it photographically. We made sick jokes and then Ms Pants' mommy gave us chili and cornbread and we looked at old photographs of Ms Pants as a wee Miss. All in all, a smashing time was had by all. Getting muddy for porno is so incredibly gratifying.

Then we began the long journey back to Pittsburgh, during which Admiral Wastehammer fell asleep and I had my first long and thoughtful in-person conversation with Ms Pants. Admiral Wastehammer did wake up at one point when Veganaise was mentioned, but I think we lost her again shortly after the Veganaise conversation ended. The conversation went something like this:

Pants: something something...Veganaise.
BS: mmmm...Veganaise.
Wastehammer: Did someone say 'Veganaise'? Veganaise is the shit.
[the end]

Ms Pants is one helluva smart lady, and I'm really grateful for that 3-hour drive back to Pittsburgh and the conversation we had therein. I love the way she communicates, and how it always sounds sarcastic on the surface because she has a deceptive tone-of-voice and how heartfelt and thoughtful a lot of it is once you catch on to the fact that she isn't being sarcastic. We talked about family and love and school and self-documentation and smarty-pantsness and relationships and haggards and it was totally awesome and now we really wish we lived near each other so that we could have haggard silent morning coffee and late-nite french fries together. And she loves 'This American Life' on NPR.

Ms Pants has a mini tape recorder, with real tapes, and she talks to it every night. I think this is one of the most fascinating things ever, particularly within the theme of self-documentation, which I happen to think is part of what the sites I work for are all about. I had never really considered doing vocal self-documentation, but I have been looking for an alternative to the artifice of writing as, while it is certainly luxurious and useful and intimate, needs to be given a rest once in awhile. So then I think about Ms Pants talkin shit to her mini tape recorder with real tapes, and I think about her playing it back and I think about what she must learn and what kind of perspective that must give to her entire existence and how often she must surprise herself and I get to thinking that this could be a whole new frontier in both the documentation of myself and of the waves on the rocks at Pescadero beach (which I would also record if I had a mini recorder).

Ms Pants is so fucking thoughtful and seems to appreciate references to The Big Lebowski. She is also in Pittsburgh, which means she relates to this whole cultural milieu that is specifically and fantastically Pittsburgh and gritty and down-home and full of greasy food and beer. I loved the sense of familiarity I got from spending a full porno day with her and Admiral Wastehammer. Cool girls in Pittsburgh are a special breed of awesome.

Ms Pants loved the Agony experience so much that she came over to my house and did it again a few days later. I am so grateful to her for letting me test out my wobbly porno legs on her - this was my first experience assisting another ISM artist/Agoness, and I learned so very much from working with her. I was really please to hear that she actually enjoyed herself, and already she's asking for more! Fuck yeah. Once you go porno, you never go back.

Ms Pants is one haggard-ass lady, and I am one lucky-ass bitch to know her.

notes on bs american tour 2007

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for the sake of posting

this is what i look like all the time. i am spending a large portion of my time with lynda (ain't she a beaut), low lighting, and poor sitting posture. we are very much in love, but even lovers need time apart.

i'm getting a little written-out (meaning tired of writing) after spending the last couple of weeks doing it furiously, so i'm going to not pressure myself to put something here until that's over. i think i'm just having a hard time putting words in a nice order, and i'm more wanting to read things than write them. right now audacia ray is what i'm interested in. i recommend going and checking it out.

i'll be here again soon, so don't go away forever. thanks to those who are reading, and those who are saying so.

xo,
bs

body image and my IFM adventure

i posted this a few days ago without editing it, and within a few hours deleted it because i was temporarily confused about the difference between humility and arrogance and because i didn't think it had a large enough readership for a quick delete to be noticed. i got caught. the person who caught me reminded me of a few things, and i had a think about them, did an edit, and reposted. thanks.

it has been fascinating to me to see how drastically my body image and my feelings about it have changed in the last 3 or so weeks and as a result of pornocation 2007. i am so grateful for this and, though it's not the most exciting topic to discuss, i think it's worthwhile to share my experience of it. and i guess it's good PR for the site as well. (free of charge, r.)

my body and i have a occasionally-decent relationship, though i can't say we've been terribly attracted to one another over the last few years as i sort of lost my youthful metabolism, started enjoying food more and using it differently in my life, and lived somewhat sedentary lives in various countries as a student or other lower life form. there are parts of me i'm not terribly impressed by and have tended not to look at (i would imagine that most of us have these). i have made excuses about my body to other folks, most of whom have probably read through them to see insecurity provoked by much female-socialisation bullshit. my feminist politcs don't exempt me from consuming and sometimes internalising whatever image of femininity is prevalent at a given moment. what makes it more difficult is that some of us feel like bad femininsts when we become preoccupied with 'all that image stuff'. maybe we feel guilty about spending time primping or fussing or stressing that could be spent on, i don't know, the revolution or something. i have some great friends and the privilege of university education, both of which have helped me to deconstruct some of that, but that feeling is still there.

i brought that stuff with me in my contributions to ISM, BA, and IFM, starting a couple of years ago. i saw it as a safe space for me to consider and challenge them, and document the process. it didn't always feel good, but it did force me to confront my own gaze and my own sexual terrain. it also offered me an opportunity to see what everyone else seemed to be looking for: authenticity of pleasure. on several occasions, the way i felt about my stretch marks took a backseat to that expression and consumption of authentic pleasure. i got to watch myself care for myself, and that makes a lady feel good.

in the time leading up to this trip, i was feeling some antagonism toward my body, most of which revolved around cursing the school lifestyle of not enough time to cook good food and too much coffee and too much sitting in front of the computer. i realised that a big part of the trip was going to involve the documentation of my naked body, and while that was scary, my personal values wouldn't really provide the support for a statement like 'i'm not feeling pretty, i'm not coming' (and i would have had to pay for the unused plane ticket myself). so i tried to consider it a challenge to my ways of perceiving myself, reading my body, and having feelings about it. it was. by the end of those two weeks, i could have gotten my tits out for anybody and been proud to do it (if they paid or were cute).

i think part of it has to do with the intentions of the projects feck does, IFM in particular. it sort of points you toward different modes of eroticism and erotic cues from what you're used to looking at in mass culture. what they want from their contributors, and what i have to offer and want to see in myself, is authentic enjoyment of the body and carnal pleasure. my enthusiasm for self-indulgence and my release of control over the movements or faces i'm making were rewarded far more than a flat tummy or less droopy tits would have been. i don't have a porn body. most folks don't. but i do porn anyway. because i want to be honest about myself and my body and i want people to have access to an image that embodies the honesty of its creator(s).

so i felt like it was sort of my duty to do this work and to engage in honest enjoyment. i didn't expect to come out the other end with a healthier body image, necessarily - i figured i'd just feel good about the work i had done and that i had contributed something to the world i want to see. instead, i felt gorgeous. i appreciate the terrain of my body, the ways in which it reveals my personal history, my lineage, and my personality. i appreciate the expressions i never knew i made and how incredibly intimate and unique they are. i appreciate the motions of my self-pleasure. i appreciate the way i smell and taste and sound. all of this came from me being able to show it to someone with honesty and humility, and to be accepted and enjoyed anyway.

there were a few shoots that were particularly helpful in creating those feelings. the studio shoot i described in the post below was one of them, because it was languishing and expressive. that was the one i wanted to watch immediately after. there was one moment captured from one of the camera angles that sort of made me melt. it was just after an ejaculation, and the view is a direct one of my rear end (i'm on all fours). my body just sort of collapses after a huge jolt from the orgasm, and it's like i'm taking refuge from the exhaustion of it or something. i love the little 'plop' down - it signifies satisfaction and self-care to me. i know exactly what's happening in my mind when i watch that tiny moment, and it's real and that's so cool.

i also did a little 'educational' video with chloe and lilie where i showed them female ejaculation, which apparently neither of them had experience with. it can be a little intimidating to show folks your sex tricks, especially when those folks are two gorgeous australian girls with incredible bodies who i've met once before. but they were so enthusiastic and fun and relaxing that i ended up feeling great about it and appreciating the things my body does. it was really affirming and fun.

so now i'm still in this sort of afterglow where i appreciate myself and my ability to give myself love and care and sex. i associate so much of it with being in front of the camera, being with people who appreciate my zeal for the job, and being honest in looking at images of myself. i'm not suggesting that everyone who has shitty feelings about their body image should jump in front of the camera and start wanking, because we all have different responses to self-documentation and audience, but i can testify to it being really gratifying and healthy for me. maybe not everyone on IFM experiences that or thinks this much about it, and that's ok - it means different things for different folks. but this is what happened with me, and, as i said, i'm grateful.

enclosed is a photo i took a couple of days ago when testing out all the different kinds of light in my flat for an upcoming ISM shoot. i like it because it looks like i like me.