Good morning, my darling. Beloved reader and ofttimes companion.
How long has it been since I was happy? Suffused with joy for no reason other than I am alive, and life is good. Days? Weeks? Possibly even years.
I am a crier. I inherited it from my mother, though where she got it I don’t know. My grandfather is stoic at best and my grandmother is all love, all light, all the time. I cry when I am afraid, when I am sad, but by far I cry the most often when I am touched by beauty.
I had the incredible privilege yesterday to be present for someone who needed to cry. Men are indoctrinated against vulnerability. Women love their partners to be emotionally vulnerable with them, so this training makes exactly zero sense, but here we are.
And here I am, one of the few people in your life who can bear your fear and sadness free of judgement. I don’t know your mother or your best friend. I couldn’t share your secrets even if I wanted to, and so they are safe here. Your shame, your weakness, your fears… all are safe here and it my joy and my pleasure to hold space for them.
It is also my pride, of which I am not proud. I have been the vulnerable before, but with someone whose joy and pride at being the “safe space” made them unsafe. The experience of crying with someone, on someone, is incredibly private and intimate. That my sadness might bring joy to another makes my flesh crawl.
But one of my favorite mentors is an expert at holding space. The first time we met one on one, she let my mouth run away with me first. For an hour, I spilled detail after detail of what was upsetting me but it only took her one question to break down every careful wall my words had built. For the next hour, I sobbed. She didn’t stop me, or hold me, or try to reason me out of it, she just said “there it is” the way you’d say it to a newborn kitten who found the nipple. Soft. Loving. Joyous without owning it.
I cried like that until I exhausted myself and felt better. We talked solutions to my problem, we have met a few more times over the years, and always with the same structure: I talk, I cry, I feel better. I hope someday to be half as perceptive, half as present, half as thoughtful as she. For now, what I have will do, and I am grateful for it.
Something about today is beautiful. The sun in hidden, I have no work to help me feel productive, nothing really has changed since the second (that’s the last time I had an actual bad day), so why am I so at peace today?
Maybe my efforts are finally starting to pay off. I’ve been exercising daily this year, tracking my moods and habits, journaling frequently, giving myself permission to follow my whims, reading more… something seems to be working, though I don’t know what.
All I know is that, despite setbacks and the vagaries of time, life is pretty damn good.
Imagine with me, if you will: you’re going to the grocery store. You have a long list, it’s Friday afternoon, and you’re greeted by an irritatingly full parking lot. You spot an empty space. As you round the corner to pull in, you are greeted with… The Stray Cart. One wheel is popped up onto the curb to keep it from rolling away into traffic but it’s butt is in your way, much as you are now in the way of other shoppers. This onerous chore, already packed into a busy day, just got worse. And why?
Because someone else’s time is more important than yours.
Shopping carts are a privately owned community resource. You won’t be arrested, fined, or even shamed really for leaving your cart in a neighboring parking spot, but putting it back is the right thing to do, a helpful thing to do, and a low effort thing to do. Because of this peculiar combination of features, returning a cart makes an interesting litmus test, dividing people into the majority group: those who default to helping others, and the minority: those who can’t be bothered.
I have always been the kind of person who puts their cart away. As a child shopping with the family, I or my brother took on the task, not even really realizing there was the option not to. As a young adult with small shopping, I left my cart at the door and walked my bags to my car (or all the way home, for that chunk of time broke me’s car was busted). Now, I make it a point of walking my cart, and others if I walk past them, back to where they belong. It has become as much about completing tasks and putting things in order as about helping others.
I think about this every time I go grocery shopping. I think about the people who day in and day out do the little things to make the lives around them easier. Better. I think about the people who choose not to complete this incredibly simple, easy task and I wonder why. I wonder what the rest of their life looks like. I wonder if I have any cart-leavers in my life that I don’t know about. And I feel a little smugness, and a little solidarity, with everyone else walking their carts across the lot and back to the door.
Meditation has always interested me. There is a reasonable body of evidence that suggests it helps even one’s moods, improve one’s sense of well being, encourages the brain to rest and repair, and if done long enough, can even open the door to influencing one’s physical body.
Few of the data are strong or conclusive, and I have a private hunch that the placebo effect, long known to the scientific community and more recently, employed deliberately, plays a large part in the positive effects. Our minds are so incredibly variable, and individual practice is difficult to judge; it is difficult to imagine we can, with the tools currently available, prove that it helps.
However, I have had a lot of time on my hands the past month and after finishing The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz I supposed there was no time like the present. He finishes his exploration of the nine personality types with guides for a few different prayers popular with catholic monks of various persuasions. These prayers are essentially mindfulness and gratitude meditations performed through a Christian lens, e easily translated into a secular practice. So, for the past six days, I have taken at least twenty minutes each day to let my mind wander and try to gently corral it into something resembling peacefulness.
My mind is not naturally a peaceful mind. One of the reasons I read so much is that I read quickly. Particularly stories that are pure narrative and don’t require much introspection or pause. Part of this is habit, but a big part of it is that my undisciplined mind sucks in information, processes it, and immediately spits it back out again. Speaking and writing both help me slow down and think, but I still think fast enough that sometimes I forget what I’m saying, or what I was going to say, because inside I’ve already moved on.
On the first day, I used a mental image of myself filling with light. It started in my lungs, filled my body down to my pelvic floor, then two columns moved towards my feet. Often I got distracted halfway. Never did the light make it all the way down to the floor. But for twenty minutes, I redirected my wandering thoughts back into the light. When I finished and opened my eyes, I almost felt like I’d gotten stoned or a little drunk. My head felt light and stuffy and I was a little dizzy, and full of a kind of mellow happiness.
It’s only been a week but I am hopeful and energized by the experiences I’ve had so far. One day in particular was almost overwhelmingly beautiful.
I spent last weekend in Portland, celebrating the gradual return of the sun with friends. One of the kids helped me with my yoga practice for the day (meaning she pestered me about it all morning until I did it, then lost interest after 20 minutes) and at the end, there is a brief cool down timer, only three short minutes. I drew breath and light into myself and let it back out again, and for a moment felt like I had zoomed out, like I was watching from above as a light full of love, washed out from me and filled the back yard. Then it overflowed the fence and went into the house, full of people I love, and began washing out into the rest of the world.
I didn’t see it keep going, I was only there for a moment, but when I came back to myself and felt this overwhelming feeling of love.
According to the nine personality types, I and people like me offer acts of service as a natural outpouring of the universal love we create, hold, and share. When we are dysfunctional, the acts of service are not done by choice but by compulsion, are often poorly considered, and can occur so frequently they leave no room for us to love ourselves. The practice I am beginning is to make room for me, to get used to receiving love, and to become more deliberate in my actions so they serve me and my community.
So to feel this powerful surge of love coming from within, coming from my pelvic floor through my heart and so abundant that it seemed it would never run out, made me cry from happiness.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had to explain to a house full of people that you need a minute to feel the love of the universe flowing through you before you can get your head together enough to start roasting a chicken, but if you do: be prepared for some bewildered and indulgent looks. I am fortunate that my friends are tolerant of experiences outside their own. They didn’t look at me funny or shame me or try to comfort me because I was crying, they just kind of smiled and asked me to let them know when I was done with my universal happy juice and could help.
I’ve tried to recapture that moment a few times since and haven’t managed it yet. Perhaps the presence of people is necessary to spark the connection between a practice and a feeling overwhelming enough to bring on happy tears. Perhaps in time it will come back. Perhaps, even, it will become something I can draw on when I’m angry at an awful driver or feeling fear at the veiled future. Whatever comes, I am pleased already to have felt some of these feelings, and I am looking forward to feeling them again and gaining some facility with them.
I have always been a loving and grateful person. With time, I have also become wiser and more certain of myself. I hope that my future holds a place where I have both, and can share it with you.
I have said this many times, and will probably say I many more, but I fucking love nerds.
I love the nerd who buys semiprecious gemstones on eBay, tests them for authenticity, and keeps his collection sorted into “real, good fake, and bad fake”
I love the nerd who years ago threw away a black lotus (and the nerd who know why that’s a big deal)
I love the nerd who always wears themed and matching humorous socks and underwear
I love the nerd who stands his ground against me in the Picard versus Sisko debate.
I love the nerd who brought me home grown ribeyes and fresh raspberries from his hobby farm.
Architecture nerds who help hang my art, history nerds that entrance me by weaving the threads of of our past together, gardening nerds who bring me the truly weirdest flowers, emotional nerds who share their fascination with the mind, SciFi nerds that introduce me to new shows, gamers that help me with boss battles, food nerds who share their hidden finds with me, book nerds who fill my shelves… I love you all.
So when I opened up a belated Christmas gift to find this…
I was elated.
I grew up watching Stargate SG-1. My family’s time honored tradition of eating dinner in the den meant many an evening following Carter, O’neill, Teal’c, and Daniel across the galaxy, searching for Sha’re, fighting Apophis, meeting the Asgard, and just generally kicking ass. When O’neill and Teal’c get stuck in the time loop. When Carter’s dad becomes a Tok’ra… Every time I see this, not only the pleasure of watching the show, but the memories of comfortable childhood come back.
Every time I meet a new nerd, someone with passion and knowledge, for the sheer pleasure of knowing things and sharing them with others, I hear in my head a chant. “One of us! One of us! One of us!”
Thank you, dear friends. For the gifts you give me, and the gifts you give yourselves. I wouldn’t be here without you and I so deeply appreciate you.
Perplexed. Perplexed is the emotion with which I currently struggle, and I’ll tell you why.
Earlier today I welcomed a new friend into my apartment. I lit candles, dimmed the lights, applied lipstick and powder and lingerie, and set the kettle on.
He arrived, stepping through the door as I settled a red velvet robe on my shoulders. I greeted him with a smile.
The next half hour is a bit of a blur. Shoes off, coat hung on a hook, envelope set on the bar, body directly into the shower. Every step abrupt. He’s nervous, I think to myself. It’s not unusual for someone with nervous energy to rush from one task to the next, but once we sit and have time to chat, the nerves will melt away, as they always do, into pleasant conversation, and on into an embrace and those things that follow.
He sat very close. Not unusual. He asked me about my family origins. Not unusual. He reached over to caress my hair. Not unusual, but awfully soon for such an intimate gesture. All of forty five seconds had elapsed.
He asked me what I do, other than this. Not unusual, if awkwardly worded. “I read a lot” I said as he moved my robe to expose more cleavage. Not…. Unusual? But not common. “Mostly for school”
“What are you studying in school?” The question may not be unusal, but that after each one, he shifts his gaze away from mine. Hands now on my thighs, tugging at the tie of my robe. Not unusual in itself, but it’s been barely two minutes since we sat down together and such entitlement so soon is off-putting.
“Is everything all right?” I ask, teasing. “I generally prefer to warm up to new friends and I find it difficult to talk and touch at the same time.”
For those of you who have met me, you know there is both a warming up period, and a reward for it. For those of you who have not met me, now you know. In the case of this gentleman, that reward is now lost forever.
“You work with computers. Do you ever find that the rigid logic of computer language effects your interactions with people?”
At first I thought he was offering an example. He turned 90 degrees to me, planted his feet on the floor, and began “this isn’t working out. This between you and me, it’s just not working.” I waited for him to illustrate the point. I waited in vain. “I’ve been here for half an hour. If I leave now and let you keep half the donation, does that seem fair to you?”
In stark contrast to the rest of that time, this moment stuck with me. I felt my throat, hot. My heart pounding. My hands shaking. I’ve never had this happen before. I don’t know what my feelings are, much less whether that seems fair or not. Take a deep breath. I think I feel sad? Rejected? But also indignant. No one else has ever put me in this position and I am not prepared. Do I think it’s fair? No, I don’t think so.
“I don’t feel like I’ve misrepresented myself.”
“There’s no way I could have know you would force me into conversation like this. I have 25 Oks on p411 and what you’re doing is unusual. I’ve never had anyone do this before.”
“Do you not like to talk to people before you have sex with them?”
“Not like this”
I have nothing to say
“Think of it rationally. You get to keep half.”
“I don’t want to do that, I want to take a moment to see how I feel.”
“It’s fair. You get half.”
I have no time to think, or feel. He’s impatient. He’s not interested in what I think, only in me agreeing.
“You know what? Fine. Go get dressed.”
I sipped tea while he gathered his belongings, marveling to myself at my luck. I’ve only once before had anyone make it through screening, only to screen themselves out after arrival. On that occasion, I had to force him to leave, stony faced, carefully controlled anger simmering. All I had to do this time was ask him to see me as a person before he saw me as nothing more than a mindless whore and he showed himself out.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Would you like a hug?”
I’m not sure whether what I saw on his face was horror or incredulity, but he declined. It’s a petty pleasure, but I enjoyed his struggle with my heavy door.
It is difficult not to harbor ill will. The phrase “the trash takes itself out” keeps recurring to me but I will always give people the benefit of the doubt. Most providers are accommodating. We are in customer service and giving our clients what they want is a critical part of that service. Many of my colleagues in fact prefer to skip the small talk and put on their show, leaving the difficult work of feedback for people in their intimate personal circles. That makes sense, and I understand it. What I don’t understand is how someone came to me expecting that, and then left when they didn’t get it.
Had this happened three or four years ago, I likely would have folded. It’s happened before. The pulling, the grabbing, skipping the moment of connection that precedes something more. Then the performance, acceptable to some, transparent to others, humiliating for me. All fake because there’s nothing real on which to build, despite my best efforts.
A core virtue of an excellent entertainer is timing. Tension and the release of it. Trust, respect, pleasure, arousal, climax, release, warmth. These things have their time and their order. You cannot skip one and expect the next to be as good. In trying to force the timing, today’s new friend lost it all. He never trusted, failed to respect, and missed out on the rewards.
I’ve spent all afternoon texting and talking with friends, industry and not. I dislike rejection and needed support. There’s selection bias, of course; my friends love and respect me, but the universal response was disgust. Disbelief. Horror. Bewilderment. Who would put up a thousand dollars only to be deterred by someone asking “See me. See my humanity first and then my full erotic power will come, pounding, in waves on your shore. Only first: see me.”
Today, I verbalized a small boundary that represented a big ask. Seeing someone is no small thing. People practice for years and still have trouble. I have a long way to go before I can do it with ease. But some people don’t even want to try. And in my asking, in my insistence on my humanity, it turned him off, and he left.
All my life I’ve suffered from chronic insecurity. Testing into the 95th percentile as a teenager, I just assumed that was like a participation trophy: designed to boost your self esteem and make you feel better about your effort. Turns out that was not the case and I was well above average when it came to writing (and taking tests).
Though insecurity can make it difficult for people to feel like they’ve succeeded, it can also spur people into higher achievement and so, I think, it was for me.
When I began offering bodywork to my clients, I felt it wasn’t right to provide a service I had no training in. I went to massage school, passed all the exams, and walked away a proudly certified massage practitioner.
When I started thinking of myself as a sex educator, I started wondering what else I didn’t know, and how to find out. I reached out to a small local university and enrolled in their sex education certificate program. While sex and couples therapy interests me, sixty thousand dollars and three more years of full time school sounded a lot less appealing than a quick and easy certification program.
I started class expecting to enjoy myself, and to learn something.
My expectations were way off.
Previous experiences in school led me to think of myself as a good student. I test well, I write well, I take in information well through text, and I generally do well with externally imposed deadlines. Eight years face to face with people’s sexuality has shown me the enormity of it. As with anyone who knows a lot on a topic: I know enough to know I don’t know that much, so I expected to consume vast quantities of new information.
Previous experiences in school were not at the graduate level. Those externally imposed deadlines are more like guidelines, way less structured than expected. I wasn’t prepared to not only answer questions, but have to write them first. Vague prompts frustrated me and my insecurity (perhaps hubris) kept me from asking for help until it was too late.
I was able to take value from each class, but what was revelatory for many other students was just another day in the life for me. I found myself bored by the content, frustrated at my boredom, then feeling an aversion to the next round of content.
Add onto that distance learning and travel options opening back up and I found myself writing my way into a temper tantrum for my first midterm paper.
My teachers were patient with me, and I was able to salvage the quarter, but it was a sign.
One of the themes that popped up over and over was one of independent learning. Sex workers talked to my class about institutional knowledge, wisdom gained through experience, and the fact that certification doesn’t always mean excellence, and excellence doesn’t require certification. Rogue educators told institutional gate keeping to fuck off and let their work stand for itself.
I knew from day one I wasn’t interested in AASECT certification. Their ethics clause includes a stipulation against touching your clients. While I will strive to maintain safe boundaries for myself and my clients, I believe in the power of touch to teach and transform.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize the freedom in this realization until halfway through the second quarter.
If I don’t care what they think, I can do what I want, when I want, how I want. I learn through reading and process through writing. If they need a video log or a slide show or an academic paper, and I don’t think that will help me, I just don’t have to do it. What freedom!
It truly felt real when I had to fly and miss half of a one credit class. Pelvic floor health and it’s role in sexual function, taught by an internationally recognized pelvic floor PT? I don’t give a flying fuck whether or not I get credit for class, I just want the information! Someone recorded it for me, I watched it later on my terms, and now I have that in my back pocket when I need it.
For a year, I watched TED talks, read research articles, took notes, wrote essays, put together a book proposal, did a lot of thinking, and I traveled. I spent time with friends instead of filling out forms and took an entire month off to build a garden and take my first psychedelic journey instead of building powerpoints.
I am not an AASECT certified sexuality professional. I did not meet the requirements set up by other people, to teach other people’s classes, the way they think classes should be taught. I gained some excellent tidbits of knowledge and external resources. I gained insight into my own needs and abilities. I gained a better sense for how much I do, in fact, know about sex and sexuality. I gained a greater appreciation for the mutual education my community has done. I gained a healthy skepticism of your average American’s knowledge of sex and sexuality. And oh dear God did I gain an appreciation for guilt-free down time.
So while I won’t be listing my educational credentials here, or in many other places, I also won’t be worrying about whether or not I need them. I’ll keep learning the way I like to learn: slowly, over time, from books and from the people in my community as things arise.
I once read a book, a long time ago, about an artificial intelligence who gained sentience while watching, and helping, the captain’s daughter achieve her first orgasm(s). I could not for the life of me find it. It had struck me a the time and I wanted to reread it but no combination of search terms led me back. It took someone else’s diligence, and better google-fu, to uncover and then bring me a copy of Evolution’s Darling.
Then it sat on my shelf for a year. I’ve been so much less diligent about reading over the past few years. A lot of books sit languishing on my shelves these days. I’m glad it sat, though. Turns out it was the perfect choice for my newest book club. The brief for this club: formative books, science fiction if possible. We read Sentenced to Prism, the adventure of a company man on a foreign land, complete with plant lasers, protective super suits, painless and flawless body upgrades, and a hot half robot lady. We read C.S. Lewis’s classic morality tale Out of the Silent Planet. And now we would read Evolution’s Darling: a treatise on hyper detailed BDSM robot sex.
It turns out there is so much more to it than that.
Evolution’s Darling is this world’s term for Artificial Intelligences. They are evolution’s darlings because they can evolve fully in a single lifetime, as opposed to fragile biological life forms that require millennia and generations. As we are life observing itself, they are life observing itself fully from beginning to end.
Darling is also the name taken by our protagonist, an AI that achieved sentience early in history, when it was difficult; actively discouraged by their owners. Sentience is measured in this world by a Turing test, administered by a machine, and achieved by obtaining the Turing quotient of one.
Darling begins this journey as a ship’s AI, an owned entity, responsible for managing ship’s flight, yes, but also assigned to babysit Rathere, the captain’s fourteen year old daughter. Her constant curiosity pushes the AI to grow faster than expected and her father’s more or less absent presence means he does’t notice until it’s too late. Rathere falls in love with her Darling and as the two consummate their relationship, as they both experience her first orgasms together and his sensory tendrils feed overwhelming amounts of information into his core, he breaks the Turing boundary and achieves human rights.
The story bounces back and forth between the beginning of his life, and his current mission. He has become an assessor for expensive and one off art and his job is to certify a new original work from a dead artist. He winds up sharing his trip, and his bed, with a mysterious woman, controlled by unnamed Gods, motives carefully guarded, with an unknown past and a mission to kill the artist.
Along the way, we meet an eccentric art dealer, a human who has given up his humanity, an AI who makes art from trash, and another who makes so well it breaks the rules, an exquisite dress, and a cast of minor characters that all explore what it means to be human.
The central idea of the book, however, and why I found it so compelling, is the importance of sensation.
I describe myself as a sensationalist. I love differing textures, a variety of flavors, movement, and paying close attention to what exactly makes something feel good. While I don’t personally enjoy painful sensations, I understand why they are exciting. I’m not sure if that predates my first reading of this book, but it was confirmed after.
Darling’s quirk as an AI is his desire for sensation. Humans have an impressive sensory array: our nervous system collects information about heat, light, gravity, inertia, pressure, the presence or absence of molecules in the air, electrical fields, and more. Then it sorts it all, brings it to our attention or decides it’s not interesting, all within seconds. All. The. Time. An AI must choose what to process and what not to, and it’s easier to simply limit your sensory array. After all: you can evolve consciously into anything you want.
So an AI with the equipment necessary to collect data on radiation levels, audio and color spectra far above and below the human range, to detect aromas, to feel vibrations, and then dedicate enough of his software to processing it all is a deliberate choice, noticed regularly by others as an extreme personality quirk.
To me it draws a straight line between sensation and humanity. Over and over throughout the narrative, we watch him tap into people’s brains as they experience something extreme or wild. His relationship with the mysterious woman is violent but in exactly the way a safe SM relationship can be: controlled violence, designed to elicit reactions in the receiver, perfectly calibrated to hurt without harming, with a heavy lean into aftercare. He takes great pleasure in his control and in the brain bending results of his actions.
But it isn’t until we approach the end that we see it from the other side. What do you do when you fear your humanity is slipping? What if torture could restore your freedom? What if torture is the only way to feel like you aren’t slipping away?
Darling comes closer and closer to humanity through his increasing experience with and finesse in bringing sensation to others. Others clutch at their slipping humanity by inflicting it upon themselves and others.
For those familiar with and expecting a read like the author’s YA fiction: beware. This book is explicit where it needs to be and, though I believe every detail is important to these themes, there is a lot of violence inflicted on others and self, and not all of it is consensual. The scenes are intense and not everyone makes it to heaven in the end.
“I just wanted to say thank you for the other day. While [personal revelation redacted], I am very appreciative of you listening. So thank you again for being a wonderful person, listening to me, and talking to me. You helped and that means a great deal.” -JS via email, February 2023
“As always I am floating on clouds after spending time with you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for treating me so well and for being so wonderful. 😊😘🥰” -JK via text message, December 2022
“Amie, When we first met, we could not know the paths we would each walk. What a journey it has been! I am blessed that every once in a while we have been able to share it together. Thank you for your care, sensuality, guidance, and above all laughter and fun over these years. I love you, my friend” -T’s greeting card, December 2022
“You leave me smiling for along time after we part ways. The chemistry we have is amazing, both chatting and when our mouths are busy 😈” -D via text message, August 2022
“Amie, Thank you once again for such an amazing session! You truly are “the best” and I am blessed to have gotten to know you. Thank you for being you. Genuines, beautiful, sexy, and truly caring about providing an exceptional experience. Every visit with you just gets better and better! Hugs” -E’s Thank you card, July 2022
“Amie, I’ve had fun getting to know you these past two years. I love your clever wit, charming sense of humor, and of course, your cute butt! XO” -D’s greeting card, July 2022
“In life, it’s rare to find someone who is equal parts kind, caring, curious, funny, intelligent, communicative, and genuine. I believe that when you find a person with all of those qualities, you hold onto them for as long as they’ll let you. Because the chances you find that winning combination within someone again is as rare as it was to find it in the first place. Spéciale The first word I think of when I think of you, and the reason I have a big dumb smile on my face right now.” -CED’s thank you card, July 2022
“Amie, that visit restored my enthusiasm for sex itself! Wow. And it was so nice to talk with you and see you doing well. There is only one Amie!! I’m lucky to have her as a professional friend, and the benefits are off the charts!” -D via text message, July 2021
“Amie is that girl next door that just continued to get hotter and has that personally and attitude that you’ve know her for years. Great at conversation and even better in or around the bed area.” -TER Review, April 2021
“Amie, Thank you for a wonderful evening and allowing me to connect with you on such an intimate and personal level. Your patience and genuine caring are beyond compare. We have seen each other a few times now and I wanted to say thank you. You have been so kind and patient with my questions and concerns and it is not ignored. Have an amazing evening and stay safe.” -L’s letter, October 2020
“To the beautiful Amie, Thank you for the lovely evening, it was a true honor and priviledge [sic] to get to know you and [I] look forward to seeing you again. P.S. Hotel key and parking money” -J’s note on the hotel stationary, undated
“FBSM connoisseurs – she is among the finest. Clever, cultured, and clear boundaries: all things I appreciate. Not only has she apprenticed under some of Seattle’s best, […] but she continues to grow on her own and is constantly adding new tricks to her repertoire. She’s not only intuitive but also well-studied and provides fantastic teases. Add in her intoxicating yet refreshingly genuine smile and that infectious laugh and I always find it difficult to leave.” -TER Review, October 2016
Good afternoon, dear friends. Most of you already know what I’m about to tell you, but this is for all my beloveds who still struggle to present me with an appetizing plate off which to devour them.
I am terribly sensitive to scent. I love the smell of warm raspberries in the summer, of hot, fresh sweat, of clean cock and healthy tongues. I do not love the smell of rank underwear, that bit of breakfast stuck behind a molar, the goop that accumulates under foreskin, or a cute brown starfish lain untouched for days.
And so, after politely declining to do anything other than avoid the areas, I write this.
If you have found my kissing to lack a certain depth: -When brushing, make sure to also brush your tongue. Food, coffee, and bacteria settle between your taste buds, lying in wait for your friendly french kisser to discover. Several hearty swipes with a brush will both clear that out, and possibly surprise you. -Do a swish and gargle with mouth wash after your shower, and after we eat if we’re eating in. Don’t be shy. You’re alone in the bathroom; no one is going to look at you funny if you make chipmunk faces while swishing that minty freshness back and forth. -When you do brush, do it after you eat, not right before you arrive. Microabrasions may open you to bacteria and other unwanteds if you later use your mouth on something else.
If you have wished for a blowjob that never arrived: -If you’ve “taken a shower” and your penis, scrotum, perineum, or anus still carry unpleasant odors, I will decline to put my nose near them. Your soapy hands should touch your penis, scrotum, perineum, AND anus when you are in my shower, preparing yourself to be licked. This topic of cleaning cocks is so commonly avoided that the Australian Government had to publish a how to guide for citizens. -If you have a foreskin, this is even more important. Odors, urine, and… goop… can accumulate during the day, even in just an hour or so. This is particularly relevant if you haven’t done it in a while. No one likes to find out the hard way why it’s called cheese. -If you have skin folds from gaining or losing weight, congratulations! Your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to. Remember that odors can accumulate under them. It is important to wash there, with soap, regularly. Particularly right before getting intimate.
Other notes: -Your clothes washer occasionally needs to be washed. A healthy dose of distilled white vinegar or bleach in an empty load should do the trick. -Your shower towel may also need to be washed on occasion, particularly if it isn’t hung to dry fully between showers. -If these two things are done, then your clothes, after washing, will be brilliantly fresh, and so, therefore, will you!
I wish I didn’t need to say these things. And usually I don’t. But if you’re receiving a link to this post as a follow up to our last visit, then I did, and so I am.
You’re in Seattle, maybe on a visit, maybe you live here. You’re looking for some vivacious female company and you’ve heard somewhere that something called an ‘escort’ might fit the bill. A pretty younger woman who can entertain you for an hour, or all night. You want someone who looks good to you, but you feel comfortable with, too.
But where on earth does one find a Seattle Escort?
Trusty old google to the rescue.
Fortunately for you, the pertinent question isn’t “How to find a Seattle Escort” but “How to decide which one to see!” The escort scene in Seattle, as in many major cities, is bustling. There is new money and old, a variety of folks seeing a variety of things, and a thriving sex positive culture in which to do them. Seattle, being such a sexually progressive city, has escorts listed on almost every national and international advertising platform. Each platform can have up to 250 escorts advertising at once. So how do you choose!?!
Well let’s get started.
First: don’t think you’re going to find someone tonight. While many Seattle Escorts do offer same-day service, most do not, and new clients should expect there to be some level of screening, even if it’s not explicitly stated, which will take time. In fact, an escort in Seattle who does not ask for some form of screening is more likely to be a bait and switch, an upseller, or vice squad than she is to be that super sexy, low priced vixen her ad claims she is.
More on screening later. Right now, you’re the one screening out escorts who don’t fit your preferences, or who are difficult to get a feel for.
You’ll start with an advertising platform. The first two pages of googling “Seattle Escort” will almost always return ad spaces that offer listing after listing. I personally prefer slixa.com, tryst.link, eros.com (with many caveats), and a smattering of other places. For a more complete list, visit my ad spaces blog post HERE.
You’ve made it to an escort advertising website. You’re scrolling through pictures. You might be overwhelmed at this point. I was when I tried to find someone for a client to see in Portland, and I know what I’m doing! With me being both an escort myself and mostly straight, I only found a few that reeeeally made me want to see them and sure enough, they proved fabulous. This is how you, too, can narrow it down to only the best.
First there are the pictures. I prefer some artistic license and a little personality in my photos. If you’ve seen my images, they are mostly soft and cuddly, a little playful, sometimes demure. I like clients who like that, clients who want gentleness and sensuality with a hefty dose of fun. It’s very me and it attracts people who will like me. I understand there are some clients who prefer to see at least some selfies. I am told that this adds to the escort’s legitimacy. Personally, I find flattering selfies impossible to take. I lean on my social media, my blog, and what reviews can be found to add weight to my legitimacy. But a picture is worth a thousand words and you should always, always find a variety of images of any escort you want to see in Seattle.
A word on faces. Faces are the most subjective canvas. A face can sway you one way or the other when considering which Seattle Escort you choose. Unfortunately, the legal and social climate of today does not favor escorts or our clients. For that reason, many of us choose to hide our faces in our public images. This is to avoid detection by law enforcement or our personal and professional circles, to avoid being recognized by fans who are not screened clients, and most importantly to you, to avoid you being seen in public with a known escort. Despite Seattle’s sex positivity, there are still few places where escorts and our clients are truly and openly welcome. When choosing a Seattle Escort, balance your attraction to her face (which I have fallen prey to myself) with your need for discretion.
After pictures are prices. There are many opinions within the escorting world about rates but no one disagrees that they are rarely low. Rates for Seattle escorts easily start at 500$ per hour and can go as high as two thousand dollars for a single appointment. While my rate structure implies 500$ per hour, my ninety minute minimum appointment means a new client is looking at shelling out 750$ at least. I and my beloved clients feel it is worth it, all things considered, but for you it may rule me and many others out. Most Seattle Escorts have rates listed in their ads. If they do not, they should have a section on their website specifically for rates. You should never have to ask an Escort for their rates.
A note on rates: Before you start looking for your Seattle Escort, have an idea of what you can realistically spend once a month. You may want to visit more or less often, but it’s a good baseline. Some clients spend lavishly and others save up for their birthday every year. Have a budget in mind before you start letting Junior make your decisions.
Now that pictures and prices have narrowed down your options, you get to dive in. Most serious Seattle Escorts have a website. They are usually divided into sections such as about me, rates, contact, etiquette, and galleries. You’ve seen pictures (though websites often have more photos than ads) and rates, now you get to read what they write. You’re moving into the in-between space of you choosing your escort, and her choosing you. In the etiquette (sometimes called expectations) page, she will outline your next steps. Usually that involves some kind of screening, and an appointment request.
A tip on checking out your Escort: A few years ago, a new law was passed that made it harder for Escorts to advertise transparently. We lost access to reviews, the main consumer protection method, and had to verify ourselves elsewhere. Seattle escorts who had not had social media before this legislation began using spaces like twitter, snapchat, instagram, and for me, reddit, to offer insights into our personalities. We post candid images, quotes and quips, sometimes special deals, and other social media whatnot for our clients to review as a way of showing our “realness” for lack of a better phrase. If your escort has social media, she will usually link to them from her website. Go take a look!
You’ve scanned the advertising platforms, you’ve picked out the ones that attract you the most, you’ve ruled out the ones that are too expensive, and you’ve browsed website and social media for those who remain. You’re ready to reach out and schedule an appointment to meet your first Seattle Escort.
Now you’re ready for screening. Because of the current legal and social climate, the vast majority of Escorts will screen their clients. We are screening out vice cops, creeps, violent people, and sometimes just folks we really don’t think we’ll like. Many escorts accept referrals or references from other escorts you’ve seen before. If you’ve seen escorts in cities outside of Seattle, they may consent to vouch for you with a new escort. For those who don’t accept references, or if you don’t have references yet, you will almost certainly be asked to verify your identity. This may mean sending a selfie of you holding your drivers license, it might mean a link to your work profile on LinkedIn or your business’ official website, maybe for those working in education or government, an email with a innocent code phrase to your work address may suffice. However your escort prefers to verify you is how you’ll be verified.
So many things about screening. First: it’s important. Between law enforcement, opportunists, targeted violence, and simply compatibility, screening is how you offer your escort the same assurances she’s offered you. It’s also why it’s so important for you to take a few days to choose your escort before reaching out. You want to see someone you’re sure will be who she says she is. She wants the same.
Second: everyone screens differently. Old school escorts may ask for a phone call. Xennials might want you to snap chat them. Some escorts ask for deposits, others operate on a two-call system (you get directions to a place near them where they can see you. Once they have eyes on you, they give directions to their door). Some escorts use their intuition and others have a strict protocol. I strongly recommend avoiding providers who don’t ask you for anything at all. They will rarely be legitimate, reliable, or experienced.
Finally: Be patient, be open, but don’t be gullible. There are too many good, reliable escorts here in Seattle for you to waste your time or money on someone who won’t show up on time, won’t be good company, or won’t keep your information safe. We encourage each other to follow our gut, no questions asked. You should, too. If someone seems too good to be true, she isn’t.
Yay!! You’ve found your Seattle Escort, you’ve screened her and she’s screened you, you’ve set a date and you’re on your way! Congratulations! Now take a deep breath, make sure you scrubbed between those booty cheeks and put on deodorant, and put a couple extra twenties in your wallet in case she is better in person than you expected. You might be nervous. That’s ok. Relax and have fun, try to let go of any lists or agendas, and…
