I recently picked up two books with the following provocative titles: Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire and Gynomite: Fearless, Feminist Porn. On the back cover of the first: "Is there a group accused more than feminists of categorically hating sex? In this anthology, that myth is put to bed in nineteen different ways." -- Jennifer Baumgardner, coauthor of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future. Indeed, the other F-word still seems to make many men and women cringe. For instance, I've been working on retooling my Eros ad to target the most suitable applicants to add to my premium stable of slaves. As I've been refining the new text, I've been bouncing potential themes off friends for input. One of the words I wanted to use to describe myself is feminist, yet it seems that most think this would be a real turn-off. Though I'm not one to back down easily, I also don't want to simply attract subs who are into man-hating dominatrixes. Because that's really not what I'm all about. I love people -- men, women and in between. But I do like to have fun turning stereotypes of gender and power on their head in an erotically charged and highly controlled (by me! ;-) environment.

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Tera Patrick was recently in town and I had thought about seeing her show. Now she's never been one to put out much heat in her performances, so as a consumer of porn she's never been one of my favorites (Belladonna is my current fav. Tori Wells was the best ever). Yet as someone else involved in the erotic professionally, I cannot fault her for not being able to look comfortable or excited having sex on screen -- as it seems to take a certain personality type and a lot of inner strength to be able to truly enjoy it. But I'd always thought she was the most beautiful of the X-rated talent out there. Of course, I'm probably biased because she is eurasian like me. How could you not be taken by a 5'9" exotic, voluptuous amazon of a woman? So it came as a real shock to me to open up the Spectator and see pictures of her sporting gigantic breast implants. This woman had DD natural breasts and a perfectly proportioned body. Now she looks top-heavy and plastic. And it just makes me sigh and ponder what lesson can be learned from such self-defacement. In the end, it seems another sign of the dangers of self-dissolution in the glare of the public eye. Perhaps these media figures who seem addicted to body modification are attempting to regain control of their image, the same images that have been commodified and set free into the public domain.