Down in Flames

Oh Diary,

My name is Sandy Bottoms and I am addicted to craigslist...well, maybe this statement isn't entirely true, but my compulsion to explore has gotten me in a bit of a sticky situation today. I have been toying with the idea of selling panties online using a site like ebanned.com for some extra cash, but shied away because of my fear of having shady customers being able to track down my home address and other personal information. When I saw that men were posting want ads for this item on craigslist I decided just to go for it, since the transaction would be anonymous and made in a public place.

Yesterday I responded to a very straightforward want ad and received a pleasant reply shortly after and through several emails more we were able to establish the transaction -- a pair of worn cotton panties in return for $50 and a coffee. I went this afternoon nervous, wary, and excited. While I personally do not get off on the idea of a panty raider with my undies, I find the rush of the taboo intriguing and I figure at the very least I could scratch another thing off my bucket list. The man, around age 50, handsome, and obviously wealthy, was pleasant and surprisingly easy to talk to. After a bit of lighthearted chit chat the transaction was made and we both agreed to consider doing it again. While I knew I probably hit upon a rarity in the craigslist adult ad-world, I felt optimistic and rejuvenated in my faith the strange.

Unfortunately this feeling did not last long. Soon after the meeting I received an email of gratitude from the man in which he also suggested more personal services, which I graciously although firmly deflected. His persistence and growing 'tude towards my honest responses eventually led to direct insult, or what he percieved to be insult, (and I quote) "thanks and it is like i thought sexy, working in a place like lusty lady gives a lady an elevated opinion of herself."

Damn straight I have a high opinion of myself! And no, its not just because I work at the LL, though the unionization and co-op are an excellent channel for it, its because I am an intellegent woman who knows her worth and chooses not to subject myself to a persistent slime-ball even if I were interested in performing more explicit services. Believe me, I stand in solidarity with my sex-worker brothers and sisters, finding absolutely nothing wrong with the viable repressed industry, and by no means does my high opinion stem from anything reflecting snobbery towards them.

Live and learn I guess...

While my admittedly naive hopes for being able to jump in and out of the sub-worlds of SF are slowly being dashed, I don't think I am going to give up quite yet. There is no way in hell that I will EVER even continue to respond to such rubbish again, I'm going to take it as a compliment and as confirmation of my strength and versatility.

What if...

On a slightly more serious matter:

In the near future our President Obama will have the important task of appointing the next Supreme Court Justice. Now with the resignation of Justice John Paul Stevens, the media has frenzied itself with the question of who will Obama appoint next, and more importantly (apparently to them) will they be of Protestant faith, as was the resigning Justice. Now, as often occurs during my 3-hour long law class, I got to thinking...the media , and presumably the public, is getting all worked up over the religion of the next Justice, though it is not supposed to reflect upon the quality of their decision making . As has happened in the past the backgrounds of potential appointees are thoroughly scrutinized for biases before being approved or denied.

Jeeze, so what if my legislative ambitions were as high...

an ex-stripper (by that time I imagine!) radical-thinking, deviance indulging woman from ore than humble origins would definitely be denied. But what an interesting perspective I could offer to the moderately-conservative make-up of the highest court in the United States...pro-US Constitution and Bill of Rights, humanitarian, class justice criminal perspective....

maybe I should try to set my sights higher?


(BTW wouldn't those shoes look amazing peeking out from underneath black robes?)

Seattle Lusty Lady Closing!

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_lusty_lady.html

We at the SF Lusty Lady have recently heard about the closing of our Seattle namesake and feel for our sister dancers more than words can describe due to our rich shared history and worker sympathy. Although our doors remain open, we too are reeling with the impact of an economic recession and the rising use of internet pornography and are in the midst of a peepshow overhaul. For all you SF Lusty followers take comfort in that we refuse to go give up our show, but expect things to be a bit different than business as usual, though we believe the changes made will be all for the best and make your (and our) experience much more tantalizing.

Changes to expect:

-Private Pleasures starting at 9 am instead of 11 am Monday through Friday (we want to help you with that morning wood)
-interior revamp, new paint, new merchandise display, new signs directing you to the various sexy activities
-intensification of PR, more photos, more theme nights, more interactive advertising, more Tweets
-more Lusty events (come check us out at our LL Pride Parade Fundraiser Party coming soon!)

To all our supporters: we thank you for sticking with us and we hope to see you in our doors soon!

Bam Bam

Oh Diary, I know I have been away for a while, though not for lack of information to share. This past week had been a bit rough between school, work, event planning for the Lusty Pride parade fundraiser, and boy and girl issues, but it was not all for naught. Despite all of this, I know I need to keep my head up and try to think of only the positive things, which is why I want to share my first BDSM sampler experience. Yes, I have had some public and private spanking sessions with the boyfriend, coworkers, and others, but this mini demonstration has really gotten me going.

Now out of my experience I have learned I enjoy thuddy versus stingy things to be hit with, the cane and paddle being my particular favorites. The horse whip was ok, but I was too paranoid of it cutting my skin to really enjoy it. I definitely did not enjoy the Wartenberg wheel on my back after being bopped due to insane ticklishness, but I loved it on my wrists and arms before the demonstration.

I am not interested in getting into the BDSM lifestyle but I'd love to bring more of it into the bedroom, or play parties for that matter. While bare bottom spanking is still my favorite, I am glad I am able to add more to my list of things that get me off...hopefully I will be able to add more soon. Any suggestions and recommendations for online or printed resources would be greatly appreciated!

Labels

As I mentioned in the previous post its hard enough to label and advertise ourselves as a couple (swinger/poly etc), let alone as individuals. While I had noticed myself being attracted to other girls in high school I routinely brushed off my feelings as just a "photographers eyes" merely appreciating the female form and forced myself to ignore outside attraction (to both boys and girls) for the sake of keeping to the mainstream myth of having found my lifetime "high school sweetheart." While I knew people who characterized themselves as transgender, gay and bi, I was afraid if I allowed myself to act on my interests I would be made a target and labeled as another one of those girls "who did it for attention." However my attitude changed my freshman year of college, when I met a beautiful androgynous lesbian woman and developed my first hardcore crush on another woman (that I met in a woman's studies class how stereotypical right?). Since then I have officially and proudly labeled myself as bi, though again, my attraction to parteners who do not fit into the easy molds of stereotypical male or female may make the term 'queer' more appropriate, which is probably something I will want to discuss at a later date.

Although living in progressive San Francisco I still am met with the same anti-bi attitude as I was living in white-washed suburbia back in high school. My straight and gay friends and acquaintances, whether they know my sexual orientation or not, repeatedly reiterate that they don't understand people who don't prefer one or the other and figure that people who pronounce themselves as bi are either really straight and are faking attraction to the same gender, or gay who is going through a period of resistance. How am I supposed to argue how I feel? I know I am neither, yet mainstream social constructs advocate that people in my position really don't exist. MTV shows like TrueLife and My Life As do offer segments on bisexuality and polyandry, but they douse it in a coating of absurdity and immorality. How am I supposed to explain my attraction when my straight friends associate female-female attraction to steamy hot tub scenes and teeny-bopper angst?

As much as I get frustrated over the societal need to be labeled and characterized (dating websites insisting on picking straight/bi/gay on profiles), I know it is often much worse for my boyfriend who would not characterize himself as anything. Yes, he feels attracted to women and men, but definitely not in the same way or quantity. Some internet text label this as being hetero-flexible, a title that is even MORE hard to describe not only to oneself but to others in the dating and playing world. Not only do I find this mainstream need to tag everyone into easily defined channels a personal challenge to my self construction, I find the whole system built around doing so to be a complete mess that leaves little room for change, variation, and expansion.

Being Open

Since I am still in weekend mode I am going to make this entry a bit more informal, diary. Although the SF weather was a bit too stormy for my taste, today was a very good day: slept in late after a late night, woke up in a snuggley-warm bed next to the love of my life, went to a cafe and ate hummus, and had some wonderful/deep/much needed conversation with the boy on our status in the poly/open/kink world. While we have both have had some titilating experiences and have remained loyal to the other's wishes and feelings, the change from an eight-year monogamous relationship to a whirlwind non-monogamous relationship is not without its problems. Today I intend to briefly outline two of them.

Our main source of conflict stems from an imbalance of encounters and experiences outside of our relationship. Being a young woman in the SF Bay non-monogamous community, I have had a much easier time finding independent partners, thus unfortunately (or fortunately?), my sexual experiences have been under scrutiny and are the basis for testing our weaknesses and strengths in our coping mechanisms, intentions, and communication. Emotionally things have been mixed: feelings of euphoria, arousal, enlightenment, flirtation, understanding, intrigue, and creativity are mixed with guilt, frustration, confusion, longing, jealousy and feelings of inadequacy, though they have come to both of us at different times and under a variety of circumstances. Though we both have and do experience this strange and new mix of emotions we both agree that this is a world still worth exploring and believing in.

The second source of question is in what to label ourselves: poly or swinger. While we have attended poly events in SF and groups online neither of us find the title appropriate because our desire to keep the two of us as the solid foundation of our relationship and keep many of the mainstream monogamous behaviors strictly shared between ourselves. At the same time 'swinger' feels inaccurate because of our desire to build some level of platonic relationship and recurrence with the same partners, even though we do attend play parties and swinger events as well. Finding ourselves in a gray area it has been a task pinpointing the direction we would like to go in as a couple and, essentially, marketing ourselves to others.

While nothing was resolved in our conversation today, though that was never really the goal, we both have found a deeper understanding and appreciation for the other and of the community with which we hope to delve deeper into. While neither a single person nor source is able to map out this muddy path, we are managing to find our own with the help of new friends, new partners, new experiences, and texts. Will we leave the relationship open permenantly? Will we have periods of relative monogamy and non-monogamy? Will the prospect of marriage and children change how we feel about being open? What will happen if the relationship continues to be imbalanced? Answers to these will just have to appear with time.

A Treatise on Sandy

In light of recent questions regarding the origin of my name and the 'Sandy Bottoms' persona I have decided to formally enlighten. First and foremost I think you need to understand the dire situation I was in the summer I auditioned; I obtained a TERRIBLE sunburn across my bottom while on a trip to SoCal only a mere couple of days before the audition, leaving me feeling permenantly marred (and yes I still have the tan lines). Because of my beach trip and my general elation over being able to enjoy the beaches of SF I also listened to quite a bit of surf rock, which set the receptors for my boyfriends suggestion of the name Miss Sandy Bottoms.

While some ladies choose to create a persona external to their real selves, Sandy is taken from a part of me, or rather, a part of my real personality. Sandy is the part of me that is able to indulge in never-ending games of dress up and flirtation (or down), she is perky, naive and always willing to please, and a bit of a glamor-puss. While most of my friends and family know about my job at the LL and Sandy, the girly-girl side of myself is checked by my mother hen tendencies, my (ex-) Bay Area punk roots (septum ring goes up behind glass), and my willingness to get dirty and tough in both talk and play.

Admittedly, due to Sandy being inspired by a piece of myself, the lines do tend to blur. Sometimes Sandy is from SF and likes to talk about local bands with cute punk boys in the hall.....instead of being the sunscreen coated Sandy from Venice Beach. At other times Sandy does like to wear the apron used at home for baking and crafting in booth for custies and to read historical fiction where others can see. In addition to adding myself to Sandy I have noticed more and more that Sandy is building something in the real me; confidence, flamboyance, and the willingness to be self expressive, all of which are tendencies I only flirted with without her.

Things That Turn Me On...

Woe to the procrastinating college student...

Instead of doing my reading on Ataturks Turkey and the emergence of the one-party state (yawn) I have decided to compile a hodge-podge list of things/actions/thoughts that get me all riled up. Maybe we share similar traits?

-manly and feminine men, voluptuous and tomboy women--androgynous people of all sorts
-humble eye contact (as opposed to the creepy "I'm trying to take your soul" kind
-being spanked
-multiple sets of hands rubbing me anywhere
-more-somes
-blushing
-watching couples fool around in booth
-constriction
-the sound of sheets being tousled
-sex noises (real ones, not high-pitched nasal-y fake "oh yeas!")
-witnessing (and taking part in) queer make-out sessions
-candid nudity
-the possibility of being caught having sex in public
-the idea of ruining an innocent Mormon boy
-women in men's clothing
-innuendos
-dirty story time
-a really cold bed with someone laying next to me


etc etc.

Ok, back to the books. I promise I will make more additions later.

The Language of the Lusty Lady

Ok, I have decided to post a paper I wrote recently for an English class. Maybe I can earn some forgiveness from my previous withdrawal?

The Language of the Lusty Lady

The term dialect is used to describe any variety of a language spoken by a community of people. Factors that contribute to this phenomenon, which can be witnessed in cultures all over the world within all languages, include class, age, location, occasion, gender, and profession among any other imaginable – and probably unimaginable – social and environmental differences. Although certain dialects may only be spoken by a small number of people, as in the case of the Cromerty’s fisherfolk dialect of Scotland where the last two speakers have recently died, multiple dialects can be spoken by a single individual. An individual may use a multitude of dialects if they identify with multiple cultural groups or when one is interacting with someone from another cultural group, as a 16 year old will speak differently with their friend’s parents than if they were with their friends. Lusty Lady lingo, the dialect spoken by myself and about 60 others who work at the San Francisco Lusty Lady peepshow, is a compilation of several other dialects and has its roots entrenched in the turbulent history of the Lusty Lady.

Understanding the tumultuous history of the Lusty Lady, which is the only unionized, worker-owned peepshow in the world, is imperative to understand the dialect. Live nude entertainment was brought to the Lusty Lady in 1983 by two Seattle businessmen, who managed the female workers using stereotypical exploitive tactics: random firings and pay cuts, racist shift policies, and other unsavory business practices common in the largely male-dominated adult entertainment industry. Rallying together, the workers combated the owner’s lawyers, picket lines, and lockout and voted to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 1997. With a decline in profits in response to the rise of internet pornography and an economic recession, the owners announced plans to close the Lusty Lady in 2003, inspiring the dancers to delve into the world of business and to purchase the Lusty with the assistance of other Bay Area co-ops and the previous owners. Now the Lusty operates successfully with the number of employees ranging around 60 female dancers, who elect management (Madams) from within our own, and 10 staff, both male and female who have the option of joining the co-op. These dancers (Lusties) and staff members come from a variety of different backgrounds and with a multitude of motivation ranging from political activism, business entrepreneurship, and for the job itself, stripping.

Women, young and old, who work or have worked in strip clubs, have their own set of approved words and phrases with which they describe the strip world around them, which from the outside may seem vulgar and unbecoming of women. Working in a highly sexualized environment, strippers use words such as pussy, cock, cum, tits, jugs, ass, and other graphic “unlady-like” words to describe themselves and custies (i.e. customers). Strippers generally speak to each other bluntly and uninhibited, often using explicit language with customers and with each other. When I first started working at the Lusty, a mere three months ago, it was quite a shock for me to hear industry insight like “Try to be coy if a custie tells you to touch your ass, mouth, or pussy on stage, BUT DON’T DO IT” or to hear extensive, lewd commentary about odd customer behavior, but I have learned that it would be unnatural for dancers to use proper medical terms for body parts and bodily functions and have come accustomed to hearing them spoken as such.

As the Lusty Lady is first and foremost a business with the need to be taken seriously and competitive in the business world, the dancers, especially those who are part of the cooperative, must have sufficient knowledge of standard business terminology and theories. Within the co-op we have an official Board of Directors in charge of finance and business plans, bylaws, and insurance and licensing, a Public Representation leader and committee in control of media and press, individual co-op members who take it upon themselves to pass proposals, and various smaller committees who are obligated to project information about our business with other businesses, some sexually oriented while others are not, the City of San Francisco, insurance brokers, lawyers, the State of California, and handfuls of business associations. In addition, the Madams, the elected administrative management for the dancers, use formal business language to communicate scheduling, resolve conflict, and deal with the day to day responsibilities of the office using phrases like “time management” and “product averages.”

Although business terms and phrases are important when formally representing the Lusty as a business and stripper lingo is appropriate when speaking to other strippers, often Lusties vocalize themselves as activists. By working in a unionized cooperative many Lusties believe they are participating in a larger fight against capitalism or “the man” and use words like “us,” to describe co-op workers, versus “them,” corporations or non-unionized businesses, and to emphasis our equity and solidarity. Discussion topics for activists may include (but are not limited to): worker exploitation, going green, suffrage, union enrollment, political affiliation or lack thereof, etc. In most cases they often express a sense of urgency and positivism, their language peppered with a desire to change things both within the cooperative and without. At a Gay Pride parade in SF some of these Lusties made signs which read “Hoes Up, Pimps Down” and “Union Forever,” which both express activist idealism to the rest of the world.

While stripper, business, and activist language may seem to be incompatible with one another, combinations of the three are used by individuals at the Lusty Lady at any given time. Often during Board of Director meetings workers use stripper lingo to describe a specific incident they see at the venue, use activist language to propose what the want to see done about the incident, and write a formal minute about the discussion using business structure and words. In the dressing room, one may hear a Lusty dancer making plans to create new signs for a union meeting using explicit words, describing the next PR photo shoot both in terms of audience outreach with graphs and statistics for the support of ideas and possible graphic female body content, or hear a new coop member propose changing the logo to read “Live Tits and Ass” in the same sentence as “requirements matrix,” “technical volume,” and “cost volume.” If an outsider were to eavesdrop on a meeting or even on a conversation on stage, they would be surprised by the amount of formal business language used by naked (probably) strippers in the context of political activism.

Although I have only worked at the Lusty a few months the language has become natural and safe for me. In the outside world, beyond the red walls of the Lusty Lady building, it does take a mental adjustment to switch from explicit (taboo) stripper lingo to the medical, unsexual vernacular of most people. While many people code switch between dialects that are very similar to each other and between dialects that they have been formally taught, I do not have such a privilege; As the Lusty Lady grows with the addition and subtraction of different dancers and their ideas and changes with the influence of elements outside our control, so too does the language with which we use to describe the business, ourselves, and the world we live in.

Apologies

Oh Diary, I am so sorry I kept you waiting. At the moment I am just finding it a bit hard to balance the different parts of me. Barbie is lucky, having her different personalities split into different dolls....wouldn't it be nice if I could have a student Sandy, peepshow Sandy, casual-relaxed Sandy, and an all-around attentive Sandy? However unfortunate, life-size-replicas of myself (especially functional ones!) are impossibly and I must roll with the punches.

But back to the balancing act...I am aware that things are about to even themselves out. I will be graduating, moving, and working harder then ever. Recently I have applied to work with the Crashpad Series, a progressive queer-alternative porn company, and will hopefully have the opportunity to work with them soon. I will be keeping my Sandy Bottoms identity there as well if anyone was concerned....

In addition to all this commotion I have been striving to maintain a balanced sense of mind by eating better, dancing more which is such good exercise, and sifting through my alternate egos to find my real self from time to time. Friends beware; I apologize now for my tardiness and sincerely will try to the best of my ability to maintain some sort of consistency for you and myself, but I fear with life being as frazzled as it is I might not stick to it as well as I could.