Category: Lifestyle

How to ask about HIV status properly?

As a young gay man growing up in the wake of AIDS-related terrors, I was educated on the importance of practicing safe sex and knowing your status early on in my life. While the world has focused relentlessly on promoting sexual education, not much efforts has been put into teaching people how to ask about their partners’ HIV status properly. In some parts of the world, talking about HIV status is even considered a taboo. The question of how to strike the balance between protecting yourself and avoiding to offend others remains in many people’s minds.

I have had the luxury of dealing with this question in two completely different cultural settings. Growing up in Taiwan, I never had the opportunity and access to learn about HIV until I became sexually active. After a few disastrous sexual experiences, I finally forced myself to actively search relevant information online. I can still recall the amount of pressure and fear in my mind during the process of learning all about HIV. It was especially tormenting when I waited for my HIV results, because I knew how society would judge me if the results turned out positive. After I slowly got used to dealing with the pressure, I became more aware of how the fear of being denied by society prevents many sexually active people from learning about their status. This negative effect also contributes to the general reluctance of asking about their partners’ status.

Additionally, the cultural practice of not asking about people’s private matters further increases the awkwardness surrounding HIV testing. For most Taiwanese, unless you are forced to get tested and absorb more knowledge about sexual practices, the question of their partners’ status may never come to their mind. This not only increases their risk of exposing themselves to HIV unknowingly, but also strengthens the long-existing stigma surrounding HIV. In most cases, Taiwanese people feel offended when asked by others about their HIV status. The unhealthy mentality of HIV status inquiry equals to suspecting their sexual cleanliness remains common among Taiwanese people.

My eye-opening moment came during my days in the United States. Although it wasn’t a surprise that Americans possess a much healthier attitude toward asking about each other’s status, my experiences there do help me a lot in clarifying some questions. Not only was HIV testing widely available, but the relax atmosphere I felt while getting tested also helped me to be more comfortable with it. The open-minded attitude surrounding HIV helps Americans to feel comfortable sharing their status with those who ask about it. Throughout my dating experiences, there was never that awkward moment when we asked each other about our status. Unlike feeling confronted by suspicion in Taiwan, we consider it as a responsibility to both parties’ welfare. The reassurance that comes after learning about your partners’ status helps to ease my way into the romantic part of dating.

So it all comes down to attitude, mindset and social atmosphere when you ask others about their HIV status. An open-minded social atmosphere will help encourage the general public to adopt a healthier attitude to deal with HIV related issues. People are able to maintain a comfortable mindset while dealing with HIV inquiries if the atmosphere around them is encouraging and positive. All in all, it depends on how you choose to deal with HIV related issues, and also, how much you care about maintaining a risk-free sexual life.

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March 13, 2015
The Amateur Prostitutes in Japan
Not many people talk publicly about prostitution in Japan, although it has become a big social issue. These days, online prostitution and matchmaking cafes have caught a lot of attention. It seems that online prostitution has been the subject of debate in many countries. That’s the case with Japan.

Related:
- Japan’s Sex Industry revealed
- Interview with Japanese pornstar Marica Hase
Many amateurs resort to prostitution at dating sites because of poverty or other various reasons. Government surveys show one third of young and unmarried girls suffer from poverty today. The current going rate is roughly 20,000 yen. I think it’s neither expensive nor inexpensive, and it’s a very good price.

Women prostitutes try to get things done as soon as possible. They make various efforts to shorten the time to spend with customers. For example, just after entering a room, they contact someone and ask them to e-mail them in around 20 minutes. Their cell phone rings and they tell a lie that they have to go back immediately because of this or that.

Details of online profiles are filled with lies. Many women seem to think that after meeting in person, few things matter. On the other hand, you could encounter an attractive women without any lie on the net for such prostitutes are a rare bunch of individuals. Anything goes.

There are also some news reports on organized online prostitution. First, they gather women; it’s not clear how they do so. Then, they post comments on bulletin boards of dating sites like PCMAX, Happy Mail or 194964, in order to attract possible customers. These sites have millions of users and their boards are updated every two or three minutes. Just one post becomes unseen by others in an instant. They have to post countless comments all day, day in and day out in order to get attention. Of course, women don’t want to stuck to such a boring job. They take the place of them and tell them where to go, and then get kickbacks when they come back.

As a matter of fact, several years ago, a teenage girl was arrested for running an organized online prostitution. She forced younger girls to sell their bodies and even trained them to improve their skill of blowjob skills using bananas. It might sound imprudent, but I thought she was great. You could say that she knew the importance of marketing and customer satisfaction, and successfully operated a business. Reports read that she earned several million yen.

In addition, matchmaking cafes made the news a few years ago. They still have been doing business openly today. The current laws can’t deal with them. First of all, women wanting to meet someone enters a cafe, which has a spacious female-only room where snacks and soft drinks are free. There are some cameras in there so that male customers can look through to choose who to go out with. When they find an attractive girl, they tell the staff in order to have a chat with her in a private room. In most cases, women ask them how much they can pay or suggest a desired price. When the deal is done, men have to pay a close fee to the cafe. They could just dine together, and some seriously want to meet a partner. However, most of them try to do prostitution as they are in need of cash.

The cafes claim that they just provide places to meet others, and that they have no intention to facilitate wrongdoing. Otherwise, you can meet pimps fairly easily at places dense with sex establishments. If you’d like to meet them seriously, you might walk around there just after midnight. Every single sex clubs with a front desk have to close exactly then. They have women ready. The night is not over yet. They see possible customers walking around. Who cares? Just a little bit would be fine…

On the other hand, big groups don’t think like that, but some small business owners seem to do so. Prostitution has always been around and the sex business won’t disappear. You can start it with modest resources. It targets a very strong desire. It’s often said in Japan’s sex industry that “when one goes broke, two launch anew.” The total number of clubs don’t decrease and I guess the adult world will continue to flourish inconspicuously.

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March 8, 2015
‘Queer privilege’ is only a dirty term when you don’t acknowledge your privilege

The title of this article alone is going to result in me receiving harsh criticisms from members of the queer community, because over the last five years or so the term ‘privilege’ has become part of an overarching social justice lexicon that serves to highlight the ways in which people are inherently treated better than others in society. This, in my mind, is unarguable. The fact that heterosexual people have rights that queer people do not is proof that society in structured unequally. The fact that people with disabilities and mental illness sufferers cannot access adequate services belies that same inequality. The fact that people of colour are disproportionately found to be the victims of violence, poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration all show that things are not equal. What we benefit from is called ‘homonormativity’.

The usual response? ‘I’m not at fault for that merely because I’m (insert: white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, etc.)’. It’s a strange response, because at no point does the concept of privilege, as outlined above, lay blame at the feet of any individual. It puts the onus on society as a whole – that society’s values, and the practices, actions, behaviours that stem from those very entrenched values. Any free-thinking, rationally-minded person cannot equivocate blaming a society with blaming an individual. It would seem to me, not that these respondents actually believe they are the sole cause of privileged oppression but rather, that they – subconsciously – feel guilty or defensive for not doing anything about it. In essence, they are not acknowledging their privilege.

The first step is to acknowledge the privileges we both do and do not hold.

I can see that I’m white. I’m not followed around a department store by the suspicious clerk, brow furrowed. I’m able-bodied. I’m not forced to snake my way around campus in a wheel-chair, avoiding stairwells and looking for elevators. I’m male. I’m not scared, walking through the ill-lit streets surrounding my city at night, of being raped. These are all things that make my life immeasurably easier, just because I was born the way I was.

Similarly, I can see where I don’t have privileges. I’m gay. In my country, I cannot marry, though I’ve seen countless friends from my high school posting lovely pictures of their wedding ceremonies and receptions recently (now that we are all hitting our mid-to-late twenties). I come from a working class family. Other kids got the new gaming console for Christmas, or were not made to ‘grow into’ their school uniform, or were bought a car upon hitting seventeen years old. It seems illogical to say that where you are born on the social ladder doesn’t effect how easy or enjoyable parts of your life are.

The Western, adult gay and lesbian community is very privileged. There I said it (and shall await the influx of emails). As a white, gay, man, I’m pretty sure I’m in a good position to state that. Western homosexuals have hit a point in the zeitgeist where we are fairly insulated from overt forms of discrimination and oppression. We do not receive the death penalty or incarceration for our sexuality; we earn almost comparable wages across a diverse range of industries (not being able to marry or have kids also has the upside of giving us higher disposable incomes and less debt, too); we own houses, run companies, garner fame; we are the subculture that has almost literally taken ownership over the male physique and the quest to perfect it (just as we’re assumed to have contributed the most to the female aesthetic through fashion and design). The mainstream, televised, consumed gay lifestyle includes designer clothes, designer hair, designer teeth, designer stubble, designer abs. Our ‘success stories’ are almost invariably white, able-bodied celebrities (Ru Paul being an exception on the white part). It is an incredibly privileged position to be in – if you conform enough to the cultural expectations of being white, male, able-bodied, or upper-class, then being queer doesn’t get in your way anymore.

However, it would seem, it probably means you are not that queer anymore, either.

I understand the keen need people have for acceptance. I get it. Assimilating into the culture around you serves to protect you from a whole lot of the ill will some elements in society direct at queers. It also has the added bonus (*cough* privilege *cough*) of being much more desirable, in terms of looks, wealth, influence, opportunity, respectability.

The harsh reality is that, just as you cannot conform to being straight, other groups cannot be what they are not. You can be ‘straight-acting’ as much as you want, and society will not see you as a threat to long-held beliefs on sexuality; but femininity will continue to be seen as weak. You can use your whiteness against people on Grindr (“No Asians, Blacks, or Arabs”), but a person of colour cannot erase their race. You can use your income to buy a designer life; working class people cannot trick society into thinking they are upper-class. You can fetishise the perfect body, feeding the gym-junkie obsession; but some physically disabled people will never be able to live up to your standard of beauty. Trans women are hit from all sides – not being seen as a ‘real’ man or woman (whatever that means), being described as ‘mentally ill’, and not being able to afford to transition or receive mental health treatment through disproportionate amounts of poverty and employment discrimination.

These are our privileges. Life is at least a little bit easier for you (and me), for no justifiable reason whatsoever other than the luck of birth. It’s kind of our responsibility to, at a bare minimum, acknowledge that. Once we do, we can get onto the real discussion – what to do about it.

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March 4, 2015
Choice or fundamental standards of decency?

This particular news (Outrage after lesbian woman’s funeral was cancelled just 15 minutes before service – because pastor objected to memorial video of her kissing her wife) has gone viral over Facebook and the web generally. It raises interesting views over LGBTQ ‘choice’ and religion, a hotly contested topic. The debate is often centered around homosexuality being a choice and a lifestyle supported by big-name celebrities like Lady Gaga and Cory Monteith (RIP). The debate is further complicated by association with a dominant LGBTQ agenda, gay marriage. This particular newsbyte is a nexus of the above issues.

It may be argued that many countries protect the rights of individuals to exercise free choice. It is said that just as many of our LGBTQ brethren live in a world where their ‘choice’ is supported, the choice of other people like Pastors Gary Rolando and Ray Chavez not to service LGBTQ families because of their religious beliefs should also be respected. To illustrate the context of this article, some followers of some religions, including Christianity, interpret religious teachings to say that homosexuality is unnatural or violates those teachings in some way. This has presumably caused Pastor Rolando to reach his view.

It is not the intention of this post to enter into the LGBTQ ‘choice’ vs ‘nature’ debate. That debate has gone on for many years with proponents on both sides and is too lengthy to fairly deal with here. I, personally take the stand that LGBTQ is entirely natural. Of course, I am a Western educated, LGBTQ lawyer with my own preconceptions. My reflections below should be taken in that context.

Free choice is a funny thing. It is a double-edged sword in which it can be empowering and yet dis-empowering at the same time. It can empower LGBTQ rights activists to fight for the choice to love and marry. It can simultaneously take away the rights of our LGBTQ brethren by saying, well no, your sexuality is a ‘choice’ therefore you have to bear the consequences of that ‘choice’, namely abuse and rejection by your family, friends and even third parties at your own funeral. What happens if your ‘choice’ to be LGBTQ clashes with a fundamental cornerstone of society, religion, who for many involves a ‘choice’ to subscribe, as is the case here? With respect to this article, I would say if you truly respect a person’s free ‘choice’, you do not impose or impact on someone’s basic right to have a simple funeral. The Pastors were not asked to approve the LGBTQ couple’s choice to marry or have children. The Pastors were also not asked to make a theological stand whether LGBTQ ‘lifestyles’ should be recognised. The Pastors were asked to preside over a ceremony to celebrate a life unfortunately cut short. The family was grieving here over the loss of a wife and a mother. I would say that LGBTQ debates aside, there are fundamental rights of respect, decency and sanctity associated with the death of a human being that are cherished by most societies. This was denied to Ms Vanessa Collier.

You could also suggest that Pastors are held to a particular higher standard in the community. They are respected as spiritual leaders whom the community looks to for guidance in yes, spiritual and theological matters relevant to their respective religions, but also in fundamental rights of respect, love, decency and sanctity. Even if a Pastor disagreed with a particular ‘choice’, he/she would be more respected if he/she was seen to uphold these fundamental rights, despite his/her own personal views.

But, no, the Church here did not refuse the funeral completely, at least initially. They only requested that the video of the deceased and her wife kissing be removed. That’s reasonable, right?

In my view, this is splitting hairs. How can a funeral be conducted without a memorial of a person’s life, however they ‘chose’ to live it? This seems to be a case of imposing one ‘choice’ over another ‘choice’, over a circumstance where both sides should bring their defences down temporarily in furtherance of higher purposes of love, respect, decency and sanctity.

Thoughts?

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March 2, 2015
The Truth About Teen Sexting

What exactly is your child doing behind closed doors?

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March 1, 2015
The First Time I Was Threatened For Being A Sex Worker

The first time I had ever received a negative reaction to my sex work (in person, anyway) was in summer of 2012. At this point, I had been posting nudes for no more than a year and selling them for maybe six months. I had already gained a small following from the free nudes, so the rest came naturally. I wasn’t able to stay closeted, however. I hung out with a pretty bad group of people. By that, I mean that if one person knew a secret, it wasn’t long before everyone knew.

I had ultimately decided not to keep it to myself after it had gone around for a while. My family knew and my friends knew. Pretty soon, I was attending parties, only to be stared down and gossiped about (never to my face). I’d get so uncomfortable that I’d have no choice but to leave. I started telling people, to their face, after that. I would much rather people find out from me than someone else.

The time I stated above was the worst reaction. By that point, I had become accustomed to introducing myself as a sex worker in some way. This specific night, I was drunk enough that I was introducing myself in such a manner as to say “Hi! I’m Ryden! I’m naked on the Internet.” Now, for the most part, people react positively. I find that just springing it on them before they’ve gotten the chance to hear anything else about me truly catches them off guard. They’re forced to get to know me as the person I want them to know me as, along with being a sex worker, instead of being Ryden, the sex worker. The whore. What have you.

This night was my friends’ (who are twins, who we’ll call Amy and Anthony) birthday. We were celebrating in this abandoned house on a friend’s property. Part of the house was completely burned out from a fire, but the rest of it was restored. By this time, I was pretty drunk and a lot of people I didn’t know were showing up. Naturally, I begin to introduce myself as stated above and this guy walks up. He happens to be Amy’s boyfriend and also one of the most popular musicians in the area. I already knew this guy from hearing about him, so I didn’t necessarily feel the need to introduce myself. However, he came with friends, so I begin to introduce myself to them.

I don’t know what this set off in the guy (we’ll call him Matt), but something about what I said or just being me in general got him angry. As I’m introducing myself, he starts in on me. “Hey yeah, I heard about you! You’re a slut!” I flinched a bit as he continued on a tirade of insults finally ending with “If you were my sister, I’d beat the shit out of you. In fact, I might anyway.” This cause a huge uproar in the large group of people, ending in Anthony almost fighting Matt. This caused Matt to back off and eventually leave the party.

That was the first time I was ever confronted in a negative way. So many people had told me that I was such an inspiration to them, and that I was so strong and beautiful, and hence I didn’t necessarily know how to take his comments. I would laugh at them in front of everyone, though. I learned pretty quickly through an endless tirade of “kill yourself” and “I hate you” from strangers on the Internet that it’s better to keep your composure in front of others.

Later, I would cry. I was drunk, but I knew when to be afraid. I had never felt truly threatened by someone in person before. I really didn’t know how to deal with it. It impacted me to the point where I stopped outing myself to strangers after that. On the Internet, it was one thing to be threatened, but in person it was entirely different. I didn’t know how to deal.

Then I thought about how Anthony stuck up for me. How after that, my friends became more protective of me at parties where I knew very few people. I realized at that point that no matter what, there are always going to be people on your side. For every one jerk, there will always be ten friends who would kick that one jerk’s face in.

I want to close this little article up by saying that being outed as a sex worker definitely isn’t for everyone. I am lucky enough to have a family that loves me unconditionally. Still, your parents might kick you out and disown you. Some of your friends might leave you behind. Still, someone will always be in your corner. Whether it’s the stranger in the coffee shop, the girl you just met at the party, or your friend on Tumblr. There will always be someone that believes in you and would stick up for you through anything.

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February 28, 2015
Challenges of a trans-lesbian
For lesbian, dyke, or queer-identified transgender women, most of us have had the most difficult time with acceptance. That is, accepting ourselves, having other women accept us, being accepted in women’s community, and desiring each other as women.

When I came out as a trans woman, I was able to find that courage after years and years of shame. I thought I’d never become an “acceptable” woman – one who wanted to wear high heels, grow out her hair, “pass,” and be desirable to women. As I grew up and found myself as a feminist, I tried to reject these presumptions and stereotypes about trans women. At the same time, I found myself shameful about “wanting to be” a woman (even though I already was deep down inside). It was only when I saw different trans women in porn, trans women who fucked and loved other women, that I was able to say, “Holy crap, that’s totally me, and I can totally do this.”

In a short time, I turned to sex work, as many trans women have done, partially for money reasons, but mostly because it worked for me and I wanted to do it. I continued to find myself as a kinky, queer woman through dominatrix work, and independently produced porn. While sex workers are painted as victims by society, I’ve found this mostly to be completely untrue. I’ve found it, like everything in life, to be much more complicated.

My experience of being a trans dyke, and my relative privileges, has made me consider engaging in sex work that is most gratifying for me. When I, fortunately, came into some money, I wanted to invest that in producing great porn featuring non-straight trans women. So I came up with TransLesbians.com.

While it’s generally unknown how many trans women identify as straight, bisexual, lesbian, or queer in the U.S., my experience working and meeting other trans women has proved that we have a very wide variety of sexual orientations. Anecdotally, I’ve known most trans women to be non-straight — and this applies to those of all different types of race and other backgrounds. Perhaps one of the most comprehensive and recent surveys by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force agrees with this evidence.

My sex work, and more specifically my porn, has attempted to show lesbian or non-straight trans women as authentic and complicated people with just as varied sexualities as cisgender women. When creating TransLesbians, my goals sound deceptively simple:
1. Showcase really hot, nasty gonzo-style porn between trans and cisgender women without using the terms “tranny” or “shemale.”
2. Capture real attraction and sizzling chemistry.
3. Hire an all-trans women staff for support behind the camera.
4. Provide a safe, comfortable, and responsible workplace.
5. Pay performers as close to industry-standard rate as possible, and try to create a sustainable income for non-straight trans women sex workers.
Undoubtedly, the challenges faced by lesbian and queer-identified trans women are as deep and complicated as how one experiences their identity. My unending hope is to create, first and foremost, a positive experience of trans women, and that this will inspire many more of us to find ourselves and embrace each other as women.

Image courtesy of Emma Claire
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February 27, 2015
It’s all about the Bass

It’s all about the bass when it comes to a party. The right mix of booty shaking Go-Go boys and rad beat from the DJ. Music can make or break a party. You know a club is bad when no amount of alcohol can drown the beat away. A DJ should be able to hold his own—having his own style, passion and even cult following. In the upcoming SongKran9 circuit party, four major international DJs will grace the stage to bring the house down.

Opening the night at SongKran9’s Wicked party is DJ Alain Jackinsky. He is known for his love of House music. He started DJing when he was a teenager for dance parties in high school mainly for his own personal pleasure. As a teenager, he would listen to mainstream dance music as he was lived far from a big city. However, when he turned sixteen, he discovered house music through New York City and very quickly fell in love with this style of music. Alain loves playing a club remix version of a song he personally enjoys listening to in his everyday life like those by Coldplay or London Grammar. He feels that the big challenge for a DJ is to find “the right mix” to play. This is also coupled with the stress of performance, long hours of traveling and instability of living out of a suitcase. DJing is not a constant vacation as some may seem. It is countless hours of work and the brain never really shuts off. Music becomes your life because even at the end, the music never leaves you. It will always stay with you. In a way, that is how Alain find some kind of stability in his life.

For the main party, Neon, DJ Bent Collective will be DJing. The collective comprises DJ Steven Redant and DJ Danny Verde. Many years ago even before Danny became a DJ, Steven heard a track Danny made and loved it. It had something fresh, something poppy, and something like he has never heard before. Steven got in touch Danny and they started talking about music and their backgrounds and passion. Danny was very interested in DJing and Steven was extremely keen on producing. They have always stayed in touch but it was only when they found themselves in the same management company that they decided to create something together like the famous Avicii vs Nicky Romero remix entitled I Could be the One; a remix that will eventually launch Bent Collective into stellar heights. For Bent Collective, it is not just about DJing but also playing live music at the same time. One can expect to see live keyboards, samplers and drums and other instruments. Playing live gives Steven and Danny more liberty to goof around … and you can sure count on Brent Collective to be goofing around.

Closing the three day event is DJ Alex Acosta at Pharaoh. Alex stumbled upon DJing around the beginning of 1995 in a club with over two thousand people. He was a cook at the club and the resident DJ did not show up that night. His friends had told the manager that Alex was a DJ, which was far from the truth. While Alex loved music and had his own rock band, he was not a DJ. The management asked him to bring his CDs and he ended up playing from 10pm to 3am. The night went so well that the management offered Alex a residency at the club. Alex attributes his influences to his dad who was a musician. At home, they would always listen to good music, from rock to Cuban music such as Bola de Nieve and Celia Cruz. Alex feels that while every place is unique and different , all of us basically listen to almost the same music in the likes of Beyoncé, Madonna, and Kylie—just to name a few—at the end of the day. However, what makes the difference in a DJ’s music is its production.

Being able to create a great mix and reading the crowd is an essential skill that a DJ must have and all of these four DJs have mastered that skill. Going a bit harder, or darker, or lighter and adding vocals to give a mix the edge. It’s all about incorporating their own true style without forgetting the crowd. It’s all about the bass and perhaps that little bit of treble.

Image courtesy of gCircuit
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February 27, 2015
Why Asking Me How to Be a Sex Worker is Annoying For Me, and Bad for You

We all complain about it on a regular basis. Yet the questions keeps pouring in. “Tell me how to be a cam girl!” “Tell me how to be a stripper!” “Tell me how to be a full-service sex worker!” While my experience is mostly in “Tell me how to sell my nude photos/masturbation clips!” we all hear all of the above constantly. And now I am here to shine a light on why it’s not only terribly annoying for us, but also why asking us is pointless for you, and a waste of both of our time.

The first thing people need to understand is that no two sex workers have the same experience. None. Just because I make as much doing sex work as I do at my vanilla job doesn’t mean you will. Just because I can balance sex work, a vanilla job, and going to a university doesn’t mean you’ll be able to. Just because I’ve branched out my sex work into several different directions doesn’t mean you will. There’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t do the same things I do, or make as much as I do, but you do need to understand that you and I aren’t going to have the same experience, and that’s a crucial aspect of being a sex worker.

Asking me how much I make in an average month is not just rude—it’s useless information. It will in no way determine how much you will make and it’s kind of a ridiculous question. There is no “average” for me. I make as much as people spend. This isn’t a vanilla job, and I’m not guaranteed to make anything at all. Please consider how it feels to be at the other end of the computer screen with someone asking you for your income for the previous two years. Please consider how rude that is. I know it’s not always intentionally rude, but that tone will always exist, regardless.

Another thing people need to understand is that just taking my niche and trying to market it not only makes you come off as someone who can’t be creative by yourself, but it’s very unlikely you’re going to make sales that way. I had someone come to me talking about how they want to use “Kvlt” in their model name, and I was blown away. To me, that just screams “I’m taking what you’ve already built and am going to remarket that because I believe it will get me more sales.” And I can guarantee you: stealing concepts/niches from other sex workers will not earn you instant success, and in fact, will make people a lot less likely to buy from you. Why would someone want to buy from someone who just steals ideas from the original creator of those ideas?

The same goes with content ideas. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve put a set or video up for sale, only to see another sex worker, or sometimes multiple sex workers, put up the same exact thing. Even if the content itself isn’t that original, to put up the same thing an hour or two after another sex worker, once again, is not the way to go about this business. Be creative! It’s unlikely you’ll make very many sales on ideas stolen from other people.

And perhaps even worse than all of that, the dreaded question, “How do I get started?” I’ve seen this question rise more and more the more I’ve been on Tumblr and every time, it baffles me. No one coached me into sex work. I figured out everything by myself, made mistakes, did everything on my own. I would say “use Google,” but even that shouldn’t be necessary. In the two years of being a sex worker, I’ve never Googled how to do anything. Everything I’ve done, I’ve figured out by myself and I think that I’m doing fairly well considering. Honestly, if you need someone to coach you into how to be a sex worker, this is not the industry for you. Especially working independently. If you won’t take the time to figure out the ins and outs of this industry, then you definitely aren’t going to take the time necessary to be successful in this industry. It may sound harsh, but it’s the truth.

I’ve seen so many girls come into sex work and fade away just as quickly. They’re the kind of people who put up one video, never advertise, and wait for the money to roll in, and that’s just not going to work. When people send their laundry list of questions about becoming a sex worker, it’s usually also met with the final sentence, “I’m hoping to make money really quick.” Well, you’re probably not going to make money really quick. Newbies in the sex industry really need to get that idea out of their heads asap, or they’re very likely to be disappointed.

Similarly, I’ve received questions like “I’ve been doing sex work for about a month now, and I’m so upset because no one’s buying anything!” Sex work is not an industry of instant success and if no one’s buying anything after a month, that doesn’t mean you suck as a sex worker. It means you’re in an industry where people aren’t always going to buy your content, and that’s just a fact. If you drop out a month in because no one has bought anything, you probably weren’t going to make it very long in sex work, anyway. And there’s of course the questions that need to be asked: Have you even advertised your content at all? Just posting it once on Tumblr and then nothing else isn’t really advertising. Please keep that in mind.

There’s also the new sex workers who ask me for a list of where I’ve gotten every article of clothing I’ve worn in all the content I’ve sold. Please don’t just wear the same things other sex workers wear. While I understand some of us are going to wear the same lingerie sometimes and that’s fine, purposefully trying to sell content in the same things I wear after asking me for a list of where I got everything is just lazy. Look for original stuff yourself. Please.

What this really boils down to is that a lot of new sex workers want those of us who have been doing this for a while to hold their hands down the path of selling sex. Well, most of us aren’t going to do that. And if someone does, it’s unlikely their advice will help you, and in fact, their advice is more likely to damage your future career. Figure it out on your own. For the sake of us, and for the sake of yourself, figure it out on your own.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock
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February 25, 2015
6 ways to Connect Intimately in a Long Distance Relationship

Long distance relationships have been difficult for many couples, especially when it comes to being intimate with one another.

With the invention of Facetime, Skype, and other ways to interact visually it has helped many couples communicate face to face but it still leaves the body without being touched.

The loss of intimacy that happens when in a long distance relationship, can be difficult. One way to help couples stay connected and enjoy sexual pleasure is to find a way for both of them to interact with one another without the other person having to be physically present. The idea is for each person to be sexually stimulated by their partner without their partner touching them. This is now a possible in a world where technology is being utilized by people in all areas of life.

In 2012 Chen, a 27-year-old marketing major from Taiwan, came up with a novel idea to experience intimacy long distance. He invented LovePalz, a gender-appropriate sex toy that conveniently works with an iPhone or other mobile device.

Chen describes it as a “Wi-Fi-connected love machine that lets both the top and the bottom stimulate some sexy time.”

The two gadgets—Hera, which is designed for women; and Zeus, more for males—produce sensation and motion “in real time” via an Internet connection, according to the LovePalz website.

“When I was studying abroad, my girlfriend and I were apart and had a long-distance relationship, sex wasn’t something we could achieve,” he told ABCNews.com. “So I thought, why can’t we have something that can help us spike up our relationship when we are not around each other?”

Since then the sex toy industry has caught on and invented many new toys with apps such as We-Vibe® 4 Plus where couples can connect in new and exciting ways. Her partner through the phone app, can tease her, and play with her until he is ready to watch her orgasm with the push of a button.

One of the newer sex toys on the market that can be fun at any time is the OhMiBod vibrator, place it in her panties or his briefs and let the games begin … This Bluetooth enabled, wearable massage is discrete and can be worn at any time, making a playful moment between the couple a welcome surprise. The idea is to keep your partner guessing as to when you will be sending them a love vibration. This is one fun way to stay mentally and physically connected when not in each others company.

The Idea is to:

CONNECT over long distances to control your partner’s vibration from anywhere!

ENJOY five different control modes while connected to your iOS or Android device

FEEL an insane array of vibration patterns

EXPERIENCE your partner’s vibe with an iconic blue heart that blinks and throbs in real-time to sync with the vibrations they are feeling

CONTROL the intensity of the vibration patterns within each functional mode simply by adjusting the volume on your device

INTENSIFY the experience with in-app sexting while you play

This article has been republished with permission from Dr. Dawn Michael.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock
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February 24, 2015