Important Facts About The Female Body 

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180312 // Mental hygiene. Here are some tips to keep your mind cleand and positive that helped me a lot.

Dear New Poly Partner,

Being with you, I feel flooded with butterflies, warm-and-fuzzies, and daydreams. At the same time, I appreciate the depth we’ve already created together in such a short period of time. I feel really grateful to have you in my life and I’m so excited that we’re exploring together. 

I know you’re new to poly and it can feel intimidating and scary. I want you to know a few things about me and my viewpoints on this as we move down this path together.

My established relationships are not a threat to you. They’re not something you have to compete with, be better than, or worry about. I’m happy to tell you anything you want to know about them. You’re not in the way, taking time away from someone else, or upsetting the balance.

Being poly doesn’t mean I date or sleep with just anyone. I’m picky and am not interested in adding someone who is mediocre into my physical or energetic space. You offer me something special that no one else does. I care about you and feel energized by our connection.

While I’ve had other relationships before, this is the first time I’m having our relationship, and that’s as new to me as it is to you. I don’t know what’s going to happen and can’t predict every breakdown that we may encounter along the way. 

What I DO know, is that I’m committed to establishing open communication and talking to you about how I’m feeling as we deepen together. I want for you to feel safe enough with me and our connection to do the same.

I don’t have an empty box that I want you to fit into, nor am I using you to fill holes in my life that other partners have left empty. My life is full of love, depth, richness, and I want to share it with you.

This feels exciting, fun, scary, sweet, intimidating, tender, beautiful, deep, and intriguing all at the same time.

I care about you and really looking forward to deepening, growing, learning, and sharing together.

xoxo

“Rough rope. Soft skin. Obedience offered.”

— Six Sexy Words

Oh what a night.. By © Bob Astakhov

Want to maintain or improve your writing skills in your target language this summer? Try this 30-day writing challenge for June: Every day, answer the following prompts in your target language. Good luck!

Write a short letter to someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

What are your future career goals?

What’s your favorite childhood movie? Why?

If you could learn to cook anything this summer, what would it be and why?

List 5 (or more) things that make you happy.

What is your morning routine?

What is your night routine?

Who is one influential person in your life? Why?

Write a poem about someone (or something) you love :)

List 5 of your pet peeves.

What’s something about yourself that you want to improve?

What’s one place you’ve always wanted to visit? Why?

What’s one thing you’re looking forward to this summer?

What’s one of your favorite things about yourself? Why?

Write a haiku about summertime.

What are your future career goals?

Who’s your celebrity crush? What do you like about them (besides how cute I’m sure they are lol)?

What’s your favorite summer memory?

Translate 3 of your favorite quotes into your target language.

Write 3 things that scare you and why.

Write about a challenge you’ve overcome!

Who is someone, dead or alive, you would love to meet? Why?

Who is your best friend and why do you love them?

What is your favorite item in your room?

What’s one book you had to read in school that you DIDN’T like? Rant about it.

What’s one good memory from school?

List an insecurity, then refute it by reminding yourself how great you are :)

How do you think someone would describe you?

How do you relax after a stressful or difficult day?

What was your favorite part of this month?

If you participate in this challenge and post your prompt answers, make sure to tag me with #studyingsenseless or #writingchallengejune ! I’ll be doing it too :)

Transition // Reflection

I started doing sex work at the age of 18 years old. It began with selling my underwear via craigslist ads, and continued on through clip selling, web cam modeling, stripping, and mainstream porn.

A few months ago I decided to leave the porn industry and discontinue any clip selling, webcam modeling, and stripping. My decision to move on from these aspects of my life (parts which I’d spent the last two years building my life around) had been a long time coming.

I got into sex work as a way to make quick money. I’d heard that selling panties was an easy way to make decent money on a time crunch, went for it, and kept it up for a while.

A few months down the road, I had left my job (for unrelated reasons), and wanted to see what my options were until I could figure something else out. I signed up for a website that advertised opportunity to make good money on your own time and your own terms. It boasted of the power you had over the content you sold: no need to get naked, every model set their own boundaries, and could make great money doing it. I went into this line of work not really knowing where my boundaries were, and decided I’d figure that out as I went. I quickly learned I could expand my income further the further I was willing to go into the industry, and with the financial stability I was quickly attaining, I found it easier and easier to say, “okay.” to doing new things on camera.

Around the time I started to consider the possibility of pursuing a career in porn, I fell in love with myself and the world around me. I found a passion and hope for life through the knowledge and connections I made with our planet’s biome – my first tastes of this found in permaculture, mycology, and herbalism. Not that I hadn’t had a love or hope before, but these things gave that love and hope power, and purpose. I quickly decided I wanted to use the financial opportunities I had before me to build a life around the things that I loved. I had a goal to work toward, and that gave me good reason to take advantage of the financial pull I would soon attain.

I decided to dedicate all of my time and energy into making enough money to buy and develop a piece of land. I knew the life I wanted, and immersing myself in the mainstream porn industry was a way to get there.

But getting closer to the life I wanted to live brought me deeper into that which I was working to distance myself from.

From the very beginning of my journey into the industry my heart and mind ached for a lifestyle I wasn’t betting on finding there. Building my life around my career constantly contradicted what my heart and mind were yearning for, and living in that paradox was a constant struggle, but one I held to be a sacrifice for the better of my future.

Porn was my means to an end, and I knew there was an expiration date on how much I could tolerate. I wasn’t sure when that would be, and decided I’d go for it as long as I could. And if I was doing it, I’d go all the way. I wanted to get in, get out, and move on as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Quickly after becoming a part of the industry I became aware of the long list of issues it portrayed and perpetuated (as most industries do). I wanted change, and I wanted to share that with as many people as I could, but porn wasn’t my platform – it was a stepping stone.

I battled with myself daily on whether or not I was making the right choices. For myself, for my community, and for my peers. As long as I felt I was working toward something meaningful, and making progress, I decided to stick it out.

I did all I could to be extremely thoughtful and present in the choices I made while in the industry, but looking back now, I made a lot of decisions that were not good for my health.

A huge portion of porn is all about pushing the envelope, and a huge portion of the scenes I performed in did not align with my personal and moral preferences. I did my best to sway dialogue and scenarios into directions I felt more comfortable with whenever I saw the chance, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t in control of the themes, or the finished products. I would always go back to the rationalization that I didn’t get into the industry to change it. I had a plan to try and better our world, and porn was getting me there. But that didn’t keep the mental, emotional, and physical toll from taking.

I gave so much of myself to my work. To performing partners, to directors, to my agent, and to the audience. Sex work never harbored a safe space for me to share my sexuality and affection wholly. I constantly gave my tenderness and presence in return for financial capital, and I was constantly urged to share more than I did the time before. All for the sake of their views, their shock value, and all for the sake of my future, my want to create something completely contrary to the cycle I had become a part of.

A few months ago I reached my breaking point. I was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally by my work and the lifestyle that came along with it. Over the course of a few weeks the battle I’d been struggling to keep at bay unraveled, and I was no longer able to rationalize staying in the industry.

For the sake of my health, I walked away from what I spent 2+ years building my life around.

Leaving that part of my life was the best decision I could make for myself. The space I now have to fill my heart and mind with the things that I love has brought me a joy and fulfillment that my career made nearly impossible.

Further still, I now have the space to look back upon an industry and my experiences in it without the bias my financial stability being put on the line ensues.

I do not support the industry as it stands today. A huge majority of porn being produced and consumed perpetuates ideas and stereotypes targeting and harming multiple minorities. There are deep-seeded issues still very present in the industry, and I do believe that extreme reform is necessary if it’s ever to be a safe environment for those involved – especially the performers.

The issue of harmful media being created does not stop with porn. Many; if not all industries in a capitalist economy take on strategies that push for profit and ignore any accountability for the threat that those strategies more often than not pose to the health of both workers, and consumers.

My intention with this article has been to touch base with all interested in where I’m at and why I left the industry, and that is deeply connected to problems I think need to be confronted within it. As I continue to process and think critically upon my experiences, I feel a strong responsibility to speak more honestly and explicitly upon these issues.

I appreciate you taking the time to read through what I have to say today, and I hope that, if nothing more, it inspires you to think more critically of what you consume, and how it got to you. It ain’t all bad, but it sure as frick ain’t all good, either.

Replace that cat w a dog and I'm good