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.

masturbating on camera and things

this post contains things that might make my father uneasy. if you are somewhat squeamish about images of me during orgasm, skip it.

in addition to all of the fun, sexy, tasty, pretty things i was exposed to in melbourne, i actually did a bit of work as well. we arranged a rather busy shooting schedule because i felt up for it and we figured this was our chance to get good footage from me, so we just kinda went for it. i think i did somewhere around 7 or 8 shoots. it was exhausting and challenging.

i don't want to ruin the surprise by describing each shoot in detail, but i did want to highlight some of the really nice experiences i had. it was indulgent to have someone else do the lighting and the camerawork, and while that takes a good bit of time, it's gratifying to have people do work to make you look pretty. it's like glamour shots by deb, only sexier.

while i much prefer the location shoots on IFM, i felt like i was finally a member of the feelers' club when i got to do my studio shoot. i had done my first shoot of the trip at a location, so it was nice to sort of relax in a bed in comfy clothes with my favorite blanket. r anticipated that i might destroy the bedding, so he stacked a bunch of it on top of the bed - something like 5 or 6 layers. if there's one thing i've learned since i started ejaculating, it's that you can never underestimate your ability to soak through to the mattress, no matter what you put under you. i suggested that possibility to r and got some minor scoffing: 'it's not going to go all the way through, do you see how many layers there are?' that made it almost a challenge, to which i firmly stepped up. lo and behold, when i went to have another go in the bedroom a few days later with chloe and lilie, there was a plastic sheet over the mattress.

i can't tell you how gorgeous i felt in that shoot. i had been out for strippers the night before, so i still had some lovely sexual energy and imagery flowing through me. i had also just spent the afternoon on brunswick street looking at pretty girls and vintage shopping, so a wank around 6 was perfectly scheduled. i was totally comfortable and relaxed and had been given permission to indulge and take my time. i did. it was long and lingering and sensual and i switched around the techniques a bit (it's nice to be comfy enough to do that). i think i finished with about 5 minutes left on the tape, and i immediately asked to see the footage because it had seemed like an intriguing session to me. apparently no one asks for that after they shoot, probably because they're not voyeuristic chumps such as myself, or because they might feel awkward doing so. i'm really glad i did, though. it actually gave me more insight into the editing process and the reasons the shots are constructed as they are. if you watch an IFM shoot happen, even just one, all of your forum comments about 'bad camera angles' and 'not enough light' will go right down the drain. there is intention behind what is done and it comes through beautifully.

a couple of days later i did another solo shoot at a railyard. the comings and goings of freight and passenger trains through melbourne can be predicted with some reliability (some), and we got some great footage of that coming and going while we were there. there is something romantic and aged and slow and solitary about railways. trains make me think of rambling, of patient, un-hurried travel, of giving the rigid structure of your life up to the rail timetable. they're also about transection and translocation, and sometimes i am too, and it's always nice to have company. when i lived in england i did lots of train travel and it's so smooth and sweet and easy and contemplative.

so i dug the shoot at the tracks. there were tracks on either side of me, one set abandoned and one active. i had the privilege of displaying myself to a passenger train at about 8:30, but i was hidden enough in the brush that i don't think it much mattered. it was quite fun, actually. lazy and ramblin.

enclosed is one of my favorite photos of the trip, taken on location by the lovely ms max. thanks lady.

strippers.

things get a little heavy when you're thinking about moving to another country, so what better to take my mind off the mire for a little while than to talk about strippers.

we visited lots of strippers during my time in melbourne. the person most responsible for this is max, who is a connoisseur of fine pole dancers and who totally knows the etiquette necessary to receive a lap dance. during the first weekend of my stay, we paraded out with miss dandy and a reluctant r (stealing the abbreviating convention from the BedroomEyes blog) after a lovely dinner at the fitz. first stop was dallas, which i believe was in the cbd (central business district - check out my melbourne vernacular). the thing i remember most about dallas was the wood-paneled walls, which will forever characterise the tale of my first lap dance. max and i approached the podium (which, in the states, is what you do when you graduate) and i enabled my good etiquette by sitting on my hands. the dancer asked where i was from and how long i was staying and all of that small talk, and while i don't recall saying anything witty, she was very sweet to me. i felt a bit clueless as to what to do with my face - do i look her in the eyes, do i run them up and down her body, do i just stare at her tits (which were super cute), do i smile or look pensive? i think i settled on a cross between watching max and watching the dancer, and apparently i had a big stupid grin on my face that i was subconsciously trying to quell, because she gave me verbal permission to smile. 'the bigger the smile, the better,' she said. i got lots of tits in my face and walked back to the table cleaning the smudges off my glasses.

what a total nerd.

we moved on to bar 20 after releasing r from our greedy grasp (he looked desperate to leave as soon as 'baby got back' started playing in dallas). this is the strip club of strip clubs, so far as i could tell. we got a seat right in front of the main stage, which gave us a good angle from which to view the dancers. they had three girls dancing at a time, who would then come down from their perches to do private dances. one of the first women we saw was doing this incredibly graceful and athletic pole work, really powerful and feminine, and because i'm even more impressed with things when i'm intoxicated, i knew she must be the one. the one to give me my second career lap dance. we had to wait about 30-45 mintues to get a dance from her because she had a partner with whom she usually dances, which i thought was incredibly cool. i like the idea that these women enjoy working together and have some sort of existing relationship that i don't have anything to do with. it makes it more fun for me to enjoy the dance, probably in the same way that the ifm sponsors enjoy seeing a couple together on camera. anyway, we got to go into the 'private' rooms in the back, which are acutally semi-private but a much nicer color than the main room of the club. the lighting is better in there. we should do an ifm shoot there. (this is the way i think now - 'some girl should wank in there and we should film it.' christ.)

the private lap dance was much more touchy-feely and i felt like a 13-year-old boy ready to pop. i was having the hardest time not grinding back at the dancers and i could see myself slouching down the chair trying to get my skirt to crawl up my thighs so they'd get more attention. i think i was a little too drunk to feel her licking my neck, but i knew it was happening and that was as good as feeling it at that point. it takes a lot of legwork to hover yourself over someone for a prolonged period of time, and i was totally impressed with all of it. and all hot and bothered.

i saw one of the dancers in the toilet after our little private session, and she had those lovely black vinyl boots i fancy so much. i told her how great i thought they were. i quite like the image in my head of me with my little nose and nerdy glasses looking up at a stripper with tall boots and telling her how much i like them. you might as well give me a little sailor hat and a red wagon to tow behind me. i'm such a child around strippers.

enclosed is the 'before' photo of our strip club tour. i've exercised my best judgment in not posting the 'after' pictures as they involved a bottle of champagne that probably never should have been opened and i didn't pay the models.

to come: more on stripping, shoots, feck branding, my new friends, and how cute arielle's boyfriend is. (i'm shooting for one post a day until i've exhausted my efforts or until it seems like it's gotten old.)

i'm a shit blogger

hi kids. sorry for being such an asshole. i was having too good a time to document it. it was all i could do just to feel good and have a good time - that takes lots of energy.

i've made it safely home to sf and, after a few other life admin duties, will start working on the back story and posting some more photos. it was really incredible trip and i am walking taller (and prettier) than i was two weeks ago. in the meantime, here's a blurry photo of max and i at a shoot location last week. max is one of the sweetest people i have ever met and she's plotting to get me back to oz, which makes me feel totally cool.