Happy Independence Day!!

Hopefully everyone out there is enjoying a wonderful day with family, friends, barbeques, and fireworks! While this holiday is ostensibly about America’s freedom, I’d like to take a moment today to appreciate freedom on a more personal level.

When I moved west last fall, I made a decision to cut ties with a number of people in my life. These were people that were not contributing in my life in a positive way. This is in no way work-related, just a general life observation. Since I was moving 3000 miles away to begin grad school, it’s axiomatic that communication would be reduced. Indeed, it was an opportunity to allow some friendships to slide into obscurity. And I did just that.

It was like a weight had been lifted from me. The complainers, the drama queens, the social ladder climbers were all left behind.

Here in Seattle, I have been meticulous about the people I allow into my life. It’s quality not quantity, right? I feel incredibly blessed to have a handful of wonderful friends (and I count my regulars -all of whom I consider friends more than clients- in this group). Unfortunately, there was one person that slipped through the cracks. It happens. In the last week I had to cut ties. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone’s feelings or make them feel badly. In this vein, I do wish that some conversations had gone differently. But, the bottom line is that this person is out of my life. And I am happier for it. I do not wish ill to anyone so while we are no longer speaking, I truly hope that this person finds peace and happiness.

So while I am eating veggie dogs and watching fireworks today, I am also going to remember and appreciate independence in all its manifestations.

Getting this website set up has been a couple of months in the making. I am thrilled to -finally!- have it live. Since my recent move to Seattle, I have worked exclusively through word-of-mouth and referrals. Because I am a full-time graduate student, I simply do not have the time to see a large volume of clients (as it is now, I refer my weekly overflow to either of two lovely ladies). However, as the school year winds down and summer break approaches, my availability has expanded. Hence, the website and the raised profile. This does not mean that I will trade selectiveness for volume. On the contrary, I will continue to be discerning in those I see. I look forward to making new friends while keeping each experience exciting and genuine.

There are many providers out there that list their availability as 24/7. Unfortunately, because of other commitments that take up my time, I am unable to be quite so open. Beginning June 1st, my hours of availability will be Tuesday-Sunday, noon to midnight. Scheduling in advance is much preferred but I do understand that is not always an option. Email me at solo.finer@gmail.com with your proposed day/time and let’s work something out. I look forward to meeting you!

On Thursday night I got to check off one of my bucket list items. It was agreed upon before it happened that the event would not be discussed on the boards and it would be kept relatively quiet. However, as the hostess, I feel that gives me some leeway to discuss it very briefly here. Thursday night I hosted my first orgy. And it was a smashing success!!! We have 14 men and 15 women participate. That is really the maximum capacity of the townhouse. In fact, for future events, I think I would cap it at 12 men and 12 women.

We had snacks and wine in the kitchen where the only rule was you could not feed yourself. The dining room table was replaced with a massage table. All the furniture in the living room was pushed to the perimeter and we put a mattress in the center of the room. We opened up the “work bedroom” on the second floor, and also opened up the third floor that consists solely of one large bedroom.

Arrivals were staggered which worked surprisingly well and by 8:30pm, the mattress on the living room floor was a veritable sea of tangled limbs. Others scattered across the various nooks and rooms of the townhouse; we even had a Sybian on the third floor… Which… wow!! That machine got quite a workout. I don’t think there was a lady at the party that didn’t go for a ride!! Since this was my first event, I was nervous that any number of things could go wrong. On the contrary, it was incredible. I can’t recall the last time I had that much fun!!! And, given the thank you notes I received from the clients over the last two days, well I am going to say it was a success across the board. Which of course is great motivation to get planning on my next event!!!!

The recent substitution in the WA legislature of “patronizing a prostitute” to “sexual exploitation” deserves some semiotic exploration. The conflation of sex work and trafficking definitely also merits exploration, however, that is much too large a subject to tackle in just a few paragraphs. Instead, I am focusing on just the wording change and the implications it suggests both in the court of public opinion as well as the legal ramifications.

The most obvious question is, “why bother?” The evolution of laws against prostitution has a long and storied history. It began with the vaguely worded “Mann Act” in 1910. By 1914, prostitution was illegal in every, single state in the US. Since then the legality (or, rather, illegality) of it has been legislated and enforced in fits and starts. The recent push of “End Demand” in WA has created an atmosphere of intolerance. The folks promoting “End Demand” are using the “enormous” (enormous and yet somehow completely unverified) problem of trafficking to push their moral agenda on others. The real problem is that we really have no idea what the statistics for trafficking are in this state or any other. To be clear, anyone that is coerced into the sex industry against their will should be helped. It is a terrible thing and needs to be stopped – without question. However, trafficking is a clandestine industry that operates entirely outside the law. Any study that claims to have factual data on the numbers of trafficked people is a fallacy. There is simply no way to gain data on something that exists so thoroughly outside the law.

However, proponents are insisting that the legislature paint with broad strokes to “save” all these women (and of course, it is all women because virtually no one has addressed the idea that there may be men or transgender people that have been trafficked). This narrow-minded approach with far-reaching ramifications leads us to the wording change. We are back to “why bother”? Well, patronizing a prostitute is a fairly innocuous phrase. It is like patronizing your favorite restaurant or shoe store. The implication is that a person is conducting a relatively benign transaction.

“Sexual exploitation,” on the other hand, has definitive negative connotations. The definition of exploitation is:

1. the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. The syntax of the phrase goes from transactional to adverse. When you add the word “sexual” before exploitation, it goes from adverse to repugnant. Which is exactly what the proponents of this change are working towards. The backstory is that lawmakers are pushing to have asset seizure be a punishment for people convicted of sexual exploitation.

If the wording still stood as “patronizing a prostitute,” seizing assets as a punishment would seem like a rather harsh move. However, when legislators use “exploitation,” the punishments seems much more fitting to the crime. Thusly, in the simplest of terms: lawmakers are using the negative representation of a phrase as a means to take your stuff. Which is, of course, repugnant.