Cult of Gracie

Valiant Gnostic Of Sexuality

January 10, 2012
by Gracie
0 comments

When “Free” Isn’t Liberty. And Equals Poverty.

In Things That Need To Stop, Kara addresses nearly everything related to the subject of reviewing sex toys ~ from censorship and corporate credibility (or lack thereof), to the issue of quality (i.e. phthalates are bad) and the old insecurities that arise when a partner whips-out a sex toy. Each and every one of her 23 points are worthy of reading and discussing; but there’s one I have to focus on now…

It’s her point #3 (which, as the author admits, is related to #4, #9, and #15 as well as, I daresay, a few others).

3.) Expecting fantastic reviewers to NOT get paid for their work. At the end of the day IT’S WORK! Not fun. Well okay it *is* fun…but a shit tonne of free dildos & lube don’t pay the rent. Ya heard!

If I had a dollar for every time someone wrote and asked me to review something, offering a “free” product as payment, I’d have a lot more money to put toward my consumption of booze and time to rage on twitter. Unfortunately you can’t buy drinks with dildos, sure you can stir them but with many being rather girthy it gets kind of messy and wastes alcohol. And we all know wasting alcohol is just stupid.

All jokes aside, at the end of the day it’s reviewers that take countless hours out of their day to write the review, spread it through social media outlets (where your company had no pull), answer questions about your product to help generate sales, directed sales to your site, offered search engine optimization that built up your online rankings and given you direct access to a target market that would have otherwise been inaccessible – with all of it done UNPAID, except for that “free” dildo of course. Maybe it’s just me but that just doesn’t seem fair. Nor does it make the dildo something that was “free”.

So here it is and I’ll say it again: people need to get paid for their work.

Whether it’s paying for the actual content, offering up an affiliate program (where they can make a commission), or creating some form of a reward system so they can save money on other products. The actual way of making it worth our while doesn’t really matter to me, it’s getting people rewarded for their work that does.

The subject of people getting paid for their work, especially writers on the Internet, is a complicated one. If blogs and websites lower the barriers of publishing, and therefore often mean self-publishing enterprises or studios and production companies of one, just where and how does one get paid? It’s something everyone is struggling with right now. Not just because of the economy, but with this new digital world where publishing and productions are products becoming seemingly more ephemeral in light of the technology and the sheer volume of it all. This is especially true for those who wish to avoid payola.

Now it’s less “publish or perish”; it’s more like publish and perish.

January 6, 2012
by Gracie
1 Comment

Social Media, Channels & The “C” Word

If this all seems more like it’s a Marketing Whore subject, it probably is. But I haven’t yet had/made the time to move that site to WordPress yet. So get over that point and onto the more upsetting stuff.

There was a tweet that went by today on Twitter on my Twitter stream that gave me pause. It was from Brian Clark of CopyBlogger:

Social media alone is pointless. It’s just a distribution channel. What are you spreading?

It would be easy for an old whore like me to make a joke comparing social media to disease, replacing the Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) with the (perhaps trite and now old) Social Media Disease (SMD). The reason I didn’t wasn’t because I wanted to appear “fresh and hip” or even “classy” on The Twitter (after all, this will appear there), but because comparing social media to venereal disease, especially, as Clark worded it, would make social media, “the channel” of distribution through which things are “spread,” rather like a woman’s cunt.

Yes, I used the “C” word. Hear me out.

1) Social media is less like a dick and more like a pussy because it’s a powerful, desirable channel, the workings of which are far less visible and therefore more mysterious than the inyourface simplicity of dicks and other tangible mechanical things with obvious physical responses acting as evidence of use and manipulation.

2) Social media is less like a pussy and more like a cunt because the mystery of it, combined with desire to master and control it, leaves social media ripe for dreams of the taking of it, for fantasies of rape ~ and, when such plunder fails, for the derogatory dismissals of disgust when the user fails to make it shower them in the orgasm of money.

Why Social Media Is Like A Cunt

* Everybody uses it, few know how.

* When it is used wrong, things don’t go well, people never blame themselves; it’s the dirty or frigid channel that’s the problem.

* The less successful people are at handling their channels, the more they seek to legislate, limit and control them.

* While there are general solid principals of use, getting it “to work right” varies depending upon individual needs and desires; communication, experimentation and enthusiastic dedication is required.

* Asking to learn about how it works is uncomfortable and embarrassing to many; but honestly, not making the time to learn is something a person should be more embarrassed about.

* The old “seen one, seen ‘em all” line is completely untrue. Find the one(s) which appeal to you.

* They are flexible and accommodating, but one does not suit all. Search for the right fit.  And some people will never ever be comfortable with them, no matter how they fake it.

* “Everybody” wants to get in there; but then makes derogatory statements and dismissive jokes about it.

* If they admit to enjoying it, they’re called sluts.

* When people do profit from it, they’re called whores.

* It’s only for the “hip” twenty and thirty-somethings: Others are too old to use it; as if their our needs die just because it’s something reserved for “the young” ~ but not too young, because it’s inappropriate and even dangerous for kids, and teens are kids.

* It’s not the number of people in, or who have been in, your channel that matters; it’s the quality of the connection that counts.

* If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Some are exclusive ~ and while waiting and working for it is admirable, you can still enjoy another.

* You don’t have to be monogamous, but you ought to be honest about your commitment.

* Use of it does not constitute ownership.

* When like touches like, i.e. your Twitter feed posts to Facebook, it’s considered by some to be unnatural. Like girl-on-girl action, some accept, some enjoy, others will be intolerant.

* There can be unintended consequences of using the channel. There are things in there which you may just catch and/or spread. Some can be treated; some you’ll carry for the rest of your life. Everybody knows engaging in activities in these channels carries risks, but folks pretend it won’t happen to them and willingly participate in unprotected acts and complain and blame the cunt, as if it acted by itself and raped them. (See education references.)

* Never put anything into them which can cause problems for yourself, for the channel, for others who also use the channel.

 

December 20, 2011
by Gracie
0 comments

Hip-Hip-Whore-Ay!

On last Friday, Whoopie Goldberg told the world she’d been a phone sex operator. Hip-Hip-Whore-Ay!

The confession on The View was prompted by the fact that Elizabeth Hasselbeck would be reporting, talking head style, on the subject of moms becoming PSOs the following Monday. One of my friends, Phone Sex Secrets, participated in the phone sex segment as the anonymous “Lynn.”

The segment aired this past Monday with the better-than-expected slant of “desperate times call for desperate measures.” While the slant was clearly forced by what Phone Sex Secrets kindly calls “contextual ambiguity,” at least the show managed to refrain from many of the usual old refrains about sex work. So, yes, it was a tiny step forward for media coverage regarding any aspect of sex work.

That may be the proverbial “good news.”

The bad news is the inane, ignorant, and inflammatory comments and statements which came along with nearly every article and blog post on the subject. That’s not particularly surprising. Unfortunately.

The Good News, worthy of capitalizing and earning the Hip-Hip-Whore-Ay! post title is what Phone Sex Secrets wrote in response to comments on the GMA phone sex story at the Huffington Post:

I find nothing wrong with sex work. Nope, not even prostituti­on. I’d prefer it to be legal, of course. ;) The worst thing about any form of sex work is the hypocrisy, the criminaliz­ation which targets women/work­ers not male/clien­ts, and the mythinform­ation continued to be passed around about the work (see hypocrisy)­.

In a healthy society, we’d accept sexuality as a human need, a biological imperative­, as well as a pleasurabl­e thing and paying for it no different than paying for other needs, such as housing and food, and, in terms of pleasure, paying for any entertainm­ent. Which would make selling it no different than the sale of the aforementi­oned items.

She even managed to include the tactful, and now obligatory to every conversation about sex work, statement regarding the sex slave trade:

And before anyone jumps in with worries about sex slaves, I am talking about consenting adults opting for such things. Let’s not confuse persons willing to be a sex worker with slavery; it’s a disservice to victims of slavery.

Seriously, I couldn’t have said all this better myself.

Unless I went with my more succinct, “Everybody poos, everybody screws, get over it.”

November 22, 2011
by Gracie
4 Comments

Dear Lisa Ling

Dear Lisa Ling,

I recently managed to get caught up on all the episodes of Our America on my DVR, and I have a few questions…

Why is it that you can provide shockingly fair (or at least not purely negative and titillating) portrayals and inside looks at transgendered folks and polygamists, but when it comes to “amateur porn” aka webcam girls, you utterly fail?

Why is it that you can do honest thought-provoking and even rather educational shows on those supposedly-controversial subjects — which include matters of sexuality — yet you only investigated underage sex trafficking and won’t provide an honest look at legal sex work — or, heaven forbid, look at the realities of sex work involving people who opt to work in the adult industry?

(Yes, I call it the adult industry, not “the game” as you insist on calling it. I’m not sure “quoting pimps” is a part of journalistic integrity, even if it fits the bill for lopsided and sensationalized programing.)

Why can’t the same reason prevail or at least be attempted in the topics of sex work as it does in the other issues?

Why, why, why-why-why?

Is it because Oprah is so slow to catch on?

Is there an unwritten and enforceable mandate for all in the media to only sensationalize and exploit, rather than report on matters of sexuality involving money?

Is sex work still “too dirty” even though it falls under the umbrella of “the oldest profession”?  It’s 2011 and sex and sex work still need to be treated as scandals rather than realities?

I’d really like to know.

With much affection,
Gracie Passette

October 17, 2011
by Gracie
0 comments

Pondering Beginnings… And Endings

If you told me I’d begin again only to remain mum, I would have ~ well, I probably wouldn’t have been so surprised.

It’s not that I’m apathetic. Or without opinion. But it seems now that I have found a relative, tentative, balance in my my life, it’s been difficult to find the desire to rock my little boat. In some ways, I may be better for it; having found places online and in real life to be most of me, if not entirely “Gracie,” has me feeling more sane. Segregation for facets of personality, parts of life, part of people, is no better than it is for groups of people.

However, when things like Occupy Wall Street are happening, it’s difficult to say, “I’ve done that for years; let someone else do the work, take the risk.” In fact, the very fact that there is risk involved in such things as speaking your mind and standing up for your rights ought to compel folks to join in. But I do feel very exhausted.

After all, the nails that stand up the tallest take the hardest pounding.

At times I think it’s my age; a decade of such work online alone is a lot of nail-pounding to receive. I see why so many of the writers, bloggers, advocates whom I once hung upon their every word, as well as hung around with, have moved on. Time passes… We age… Hopefully, we mature ~ in good ways.

With maturity comes a certain bit of settling… However, while settling into one’s self, one’s life, is comforting and admirable, settling for less ~ for self, society, country, world! ~ ought not to be acceptable. Understandable, perhaps; what with being so tired. But not acceptable.

With no judgement or ill-will towards those who left the public forum debate, I just can’t seem to settle down with the idea of shutting up, giving up.

Obviously, though, I am struggling with just how to settle into all of this again.

Meanwhile, here’s something to read, Cult Of Gracie style: The Good Men Project — Bad for Women?

May 22, 2011
by Gracie
1 Comment

After The Rapture

Post-Rapture, the Cult resurfaces. I’d like to take some satisfaction in the false prophet. I even tried to take some perverse delight in a new reincarnation on the day after. But, sadly, the Cult of Gracie is born again for the simple need of it.

About the time I dropped of the surface of the Internet (in this name), I thought I was leaving the world in good hands… But to my horror, many of the places for sane intellectual discussion had also left, each for their own reasons. (You can check the old archives for former sites now gone.)

I don’t know yet what the future all holds for The Cult; I’m uncertain how often I’ll post, if I shall return to the radio, etc. But I hope to chagrin the charlatans.