a girlfriend who boxes.

One night, out of nowhere, with my girlfriend, I told her I would fight for her.  At that time I was thinking about kicking the ass of any girl who tried to get a piece of my pie.  Now, however, I see things differently.

The other day at the grocery store, Girlfriend asked, “Why don’t you ever grab the elbow macaroni instead of shells or rigatoni or egg noodles?”  That kind of pasta reminds me of being poor, I told her.  That’s what you got in free lunch and what we had for dinner at least 3x a week.  And the conversation, other than the “Okay” she responded with, ended there.  This understanding and unquestioning and listening, this is where the “worth” in “worth fighting for” comes from.

I work in the sex industry.  Every one of my days is full of sex, and people who film sex, people who have sex on film.  Really, really cute people who have sex with other really really cute people, on film, happily.  If you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m a sexual creature.  And by that I mean: I love sex and I love having it and talking about it and watching it and helping other people love it as much as I do.  What happens when you’re a sexual creature put in a room with other cute, open, and flirty sexual creatures?  You find and strengthen your boundaries because they matter.  Because  the person that’s worth fighting for matters more than sitting on the faces of cute random girls who will let you.

The fight will never be (hopefully) against some chick in a bar.  The fight will be against my own fucking shit up.  The fight will be loving her if she accidentally fucks shit up, and loving myself if I do.  Emotional knuckles are bloodied only by the battles you wage with yourself.  And in the end? Scars look better than battles lost feel.  I trust her, and she trusts me. I love her, and I love fucking her, and I love that she’s the most sexually compatible partner I’ve ever had.  And I’m not going to fuck that up.  But not everything comes easy, and most things that come easy aren’t worth keeping.  The things worth fighting for are those like the gorgeous girl I will someday call my wife.  The cute girl, boy, and trans bodies that are oh so edible?  I’ve got my boxing gloves on, and I’m ready for you.

What would you fight for?

Find it.  And protect it.

jameson.

if you write it down you can’t forget…

august 12, 1993

(actual entry from a recently found diary)

Hey! Waz(up arrow)? My life has changed so much in the last three mos.! for one, I’m in Maine! Two, I have NO friends. And three, the boys in Maine like me! Ya see, no one here knows how nerdy I was in Las Vegas!
This year I hope I become popular!

My rules for 7th grade:
1. DO NOT weigh more than 110 pounds.
2. Keep clear face.
3. get a man.
4. no more stirrups!
5. Don’t be so shy.
6. keep nails painted.
7. eat healthy!
8. Have a Wonderful Year!

C-YA!
Jamie

a tiny wedding post.

As I buzzed about chapel in my ill-fitting bride’s maid dress, the older woman in the back row thought, “Is that one my granddaughter?”  She didn’t remember what I looked like, didn’ t know how I had aged.  My grandmother asked my brother’s girlfriend, “Are you Jamie?”.

Aunts and uncles whom I haven’t seen in ten years or more gave me hugs that ranged from full and warm to awkward and detached.  One uncle merely shook my hand, lightly.  I can’t tell if I scared him off with my girlfriend or if he scared me off with having found jesus.

“What are you doing now?” a few people asked.  More people didn’t, and this to me is delightful, and for this I must thank Facebook.  My entire and extended family, blood related and step and through marriage, are on Facebook.  Thus: being gay = no surprise.  Selling porn and talking about sex all day = not brought up. Only a few stragglers asked what I do for a living and those few got the answer of  “Oh, you know, wholesale stuff.”

I think I swore too much, and too much in front of the children.  I danced, ate pigs in a blanket, and had a bloody mary for breakfast.  I took black and white pictures, and was promised pictures of my mother from when I was a baby.  She died before I would be able to remember her.

White bread and American cheese made their way back onto the menu of my life, if only for a day, and fruit disappeared almost entirely.  We brought back homemade bran muffins from the aunt that bakes, and tasted her first run of low-fat cheesecakes.  There were surprises large and small, and there were subtle hints of how my childhood with these people helped shape who I have become.

Ten years ago, when I saw most of my family last, they were in different lives.  Some have made decisions that made me decide to write them out of my life entirely; could they tell I was erasing them as they spoke?

A lot happens in ten years.  the kids grow up, the adults re-marry, the houses are sold.  But still, all the years that build up a family are still there, pulling everyone into the same orbit.  Around what, I have no idea.  At one point, in whispers to my girlfriend before we went to sleep, I told her how a certain woman could never be the matriarch of this family.  But who could be?  Are there still heads of families, does that still happen?

And now I’m back in San Francisco, away from everyone, happy I saw them, but glad to be home.

to homes and families both given and created,

jameson.

remembering the words.

Found on my computer tonight, written to myself in August, 2005:

“pulled back into so easily the places my memories rest, waiting, like dogs tied to trees ears standing searching for signs of attention.”

Thinking, lately.  Remembering.

I started writing about sex when I started fucking girls, about ten years ago.  Nothing I wrote then ventured beyond the margins of my notebooks, as I tried to pay attention in class. “I want to run my fingers through more than the memory of your hair” and, I know I used words like soft and deep a lot but, I cannot remember more lines right now, bound in books at the top of my closet, they wait while I drink my tea.

My first girlfriend had long hair and I don’t think I ever really pulled it because that’s not what I was supposed to do, somehow.  When we broke up she was surprised and I was not, because I remembered her standing by the bed, naked, the day after her birthday, crying. “I just want you to want me! I want you to fuck me!”  I wrote to her with more feeling than I touched her.  My words were a better lay than my body.

The first time I slept with a butch girl I expected something I did not get.  A friend asked about it the next day, smiling, curious.  “I don’t know,” I said, “I just, I mean, I totally thought she’d be more aggressive.”  Later that year, a high soft femme with dark hair and red lips wouldn’t let me put my mouth where I wanted to, but she watched me dress in the morning, admiring my black boots and black lace bra. “I love that you’re so femme and so not,” she told me.

“I want you to bite through my wrists,” to the train wreck of a girl I let choke me for too long.

To the long ago girl friend with a girlfriend:

“and then what do we expect to gain from what we give.
(pouring myself into what i want to hold me
giving in wanting to be allowed
to give. knowing i’m being
received. fully).
worthy. worth holding and holding
onto.

pushed open from the inside.
fingers finding names that need
to be said and said
again chanting in my body
with the help of yours finding
forming the words within and
echoes vibrating against
all that others have left empty.”

At the bar she asked me if I wanted to go home with her.  First girlfriend, post breakup, time passed.  She’s still hot.  At first I said no, I should get home, it’s late.  Then I called her cell from my car and asked for directions to her apartment.  And in her room, I used what I had learned.  From the boys in high school: how to move my body against another, deep breaths and arching back and ass up curl hips down again.  From the patient girls when I was drunk: how to kiss, how to call a tongue into your mouth with a curl of your own, how slow hands show confidence.  From my mistakes: saying stop for fear of pleasure is counterproductive.  From my successes: relaxing muscles let more in.

At the end of the night, getting caught up in memories of what I’ve done, who I’ve been, and what I told myself (what I wrote to myself, wrote to all the Yous with names that were never written), I drift away, when in the shower, waiting for me, is the girl who is so deeply, truly, and fully worthy of now.

I filled this space so randomly tonight.  For that I apologize.

But only a little.

goodnight.

jameson.

spank the night away.

Last week I bought my first pair of Spanx .  Two weeks ago I purchased a dress that looked fantastic on me in the dressing room (at a store that understands the correlation between good dressing room lighting and actual sales), but the same dress in my home lighting looked more, um, bagel-stomach-y than it did in the store.  Bagel-stomach = when your belly button, and the fat surrounding it, are highlighted by the tightness of a garment, so that your belly resembles a doughy round with a hole in the middle. A bagel.

Quickly making my way to the Bras & Things area of Nordstrom’s, I found a sales lady and asked for help.  Now, being in sales myself, I know that “I need help” is code for “I’m giving you permission to sell me things. Please do so.”  This lingere woman didn’t seem to get that translation, and wandered me over to the Spanx section of the store, then looked at me like “Okay. We’re here. Now what?”

“Well, I bought a dress that clings to my belly too much, and I’d rather that area be smooth” and so my legs and my boobs will be the focus of attention.

“Okay.”

“Um. Okay. Well, I think I want one that doesn’t have the leg-things; I just want it for my stomach.” (You can get Spanx that cover every inch of your body, fyi)

“What do you have against the leg-things?”

What do I have against the leg things?  Hm. Against them. Like I harbor secret anger and bloody emotion against spandex on my thighs.

“Nothing. I just don’t have any problem with my legs.  They’re fine.”

“Even your outer thighs?”

And this is why I resisted the Spanx for so long.  I like my body, most of it.  I have great tits and crooked teeth and small hands and high cheekbones.  Small wrists, nice legs.  There are parts that could be stronger, firmer, smoother.  But my body is my body, and it looks how it looks.  I know in the uber feminist world, I should just accept the bagel-belly and strut out in the night, reclaiming sexiness for myself and my similarly stomached sisters.  But I didn’t want my stomach to steal the thunder of the dress, damnit.

I do believe that each person decides what matters and what does not, to a certain extent. Staying on top of the latest literary trends does not matter to me.  Recognizing porn stars and knowing what titles they’ve been in does.  Having manicured hands: nope.  Perfect red lipstic: yep. Accepting my body for what it is: very much.  Wanting to look pretty in my new dress: almost as much.

Does it have to be mutually exclusive?  Can I say “I love my body!” and at the same time “I’m gonna squish it up into this impossible to put on granny-panty so I look like I’m thinner than I really am!”  Am I cheating by creating the look of being fit without actually being in shape?

If so, what about all the people who are naturally thin, who do nothing whatsoever to keep their tiny-sized body in tact, and still get to enjoy all the benifits that come with having a small waist and trim stomach?  They didn’t have to put in the work.  Why do I?

It’s a messy fight between feminism and fashion, body-acceptance and figure flattering, creating a new view of sexy and inhabiting the sexy widely accepted.

Last week I gave in and bought the Spanx.  I squeezed my happy thighs and bagel belly into the “body shaper”, and let my body be shaped.  My reasoning: Not every day needs to be a battle.  Not every battle needs to be won right this second, and rocking my new dress does not automatically equal selling out.

Also?  It’s weird to fell all sexy and seductive and then realize that impromptu sex cannot happen in the outfit  you’re wearing because the underwear alone is gonna take you ten minutes to peel off.

And that, my dears, is all for now.

take care.

.jameson.

pbr & porn, in public.

Saturday night was the Speakeasy release party.  I put on a dress and teased up my hair.  Being more used to the awkwardness that comes from being tied to a desk all day than the sassiness that comes from an awesome outfit, I arrived through the front door and hung out at the back.

What is a Speakeasy release party, you ask? Speakeasy is a new porn (out Sep 28th, produced by Good Releasing) and the release party was at El Rio, a psuedo-dive-bar in San Francisco.

What this means: porn in a bar full of people who most likely didn’t know a porn was being shown in the back of the bar.

What this looked like: PBR-holding sweatshirted groups of friends wandering through a door which usually offers a live band on the other side.  Instead of musicians on a stage, hipsters found Lorelei Lee (or Jiz Lee, or Cyd, or Lorelei Lee, again) blasted on the screen on the wall, getting fucked.  And not just fucked: roughly fucked.  Spanking, slapping, biting, swearing. Hipsters enter room, glance at screen.  Brains explode. Eyes look at the door.

But wait! Leaving as soon as you come in would be so un-SF (we are the sex positive city, after all).  What to do?! Stand there, blocking the doorway for a few minutes. Obviously.  Then leave. Random couples stayed and about a third of those groped each other randomly, but the hipsters left as soon as it was cool to do so.

I drank gingerale and posted every minute on twitter.  My job: awesome.

For you:

How to be as un-awkward as possible when watching porn with strangers (if you don’t find doing so to be hot).

1. Focus on something other than the porn.  Intellectualize the set, the hair, the makeup, the logistics of everything.  “I wonder how they got permission to shoot in that bar”, “That eyeliner, I wonder if it’s MAC? How much do the makeup artists get paid on a porn? Do they ever re-apply the mascara so it can run more dramatically?” “How much rope did they use in this scene, and where did they buy it from?”

2. Imagine what the porn stars would look like if they were dressed as whichever movie star comes to mind.  Belladonna as Julia Roberts.  Jenna Jameson as Jeanine Garafolo.  Jiz Lee as Meg Ryan.  Make it work, figure out how it possibly could.  Or think of how the pornstar looks in real life.  With glasses, a wool sweater, less makeup, maybe reading The Onion. The trick is to distract your responses from your body to your brain. Think instead of feel, but still pay attention (looking around the room makes you look like the creepy kid who’s checking everyone out while they’re watching the porn. Not good).

3. If at all possible, be the one who picks the porn.  Some of the best public-viewing titles are the older movies, like Outlaw Ladies or Alice in Wonderland.  The scenes are shorter, the bodies are more natural, the sets are funny.  Sometimes there’s music.  In other words, there’s a bunch to think about and notice and comment on and be distracted by.  There’s more than fucking, so you can keep the hard on off.

Now, my advice is given assuming you are a normal ol’ person who hasn’t seen a million porn movies, and might still have “reactions” to porn that are almost beyond your control.  I know there are plenty of people out there who, like myself, watch lots of porn for work and/or pleasure, and have no issues whatsoever looking all ho-hum when there are a bunch of strangers in the room, watching with you.

Back to talking about porn and writing about porn and selling the porn, at work, with lots of people in the room.

jameson.

sexy shoes and dying plants.

Last night I wore heels while I brushed my teeth.  Not just any heels, my Betsey Johnson heels.  I read somewhere that in deciding whether or not to buy a pair of shoes, you should divide how much they cost by the number of times you think you’ll wear them.  I bought the Betsey Johnson shoes almost a year ago.  Last night’s teeth-brushing date cost me a little over $50.

Yesterday I wrote out a list of questions for a porn starlet I’m interviewing for GV’s online magazine.  This afternoon I started thinking about how few people have seen my body, and how many people have seen hers.  And then I remembered this blog, and stopped walking in the middle of the hallway. Stopped cold.  Within the past three years (or so), I’ve lifted the skirt of my life, pulled back the curtains to my bedroom and my heart.  My body is clothed and wrapped up in some sort of modesty, but still, in ways, I’m naked on the internet.  The woman I’m interviewing is also a writer, a good one.  She bares her body and her words, and I wonder where she feels the most exposed.  Maybe opening everything lets more in.

And when I went to my reunion last month, like I said I would, I was happy.  Twice this year I’ve returned to somewhere I started.  I’m back selling sex toys, and sex videos, and talking about sex and making jokes that only sex people will laugh at (deciding what to name a paddle today, a coworker suggested “Spank the Night Away”; I commented how that name should be reserved for the next version of the Tenga to come out.  We thought it was hilarious.  Perhaps most people would not).  I feel like I’m at home in myself again.  Flying into New England, I was nervous, scared.  Then I saw Dunkin’ Donuts, and remembered eating a whole bagel in five minutes before lacrosse practice on free bagel day.  And I remembered crying on the floor of a friend’s house, crying on the couch in my own, making trails in the leaves behind our yard, having sex in a tent on the side of a road.  Maine holds stories more than I do; staring out the window I wondered how many I had left there, and noticed how good it felt to gather them as they gently welcomed me back.

There’s a plant in my bathroom that’s been dying for the last year.  Every morning I try to remember to remind myself to water it.  And every night I forget.  And now, at the end of this post, the most perfect full circle would be to say that as I brushed my teeth last night in my fancy sexy heels, I shared a little water with the plant.  But that’s not what happened.  I brushed in front of the mirror, yoga pants pulled up past my knees so I could flex my calves.  I caught a glimpse of the brown leaves in the pot behind me, and tensed my shoulders for a second with guilt. How hard is it to water a fucking plant?  And then I relaxed.  In time I’ll be good at these daily pieces of responsibility.  Some day I’ll find a picture of this apartment and remember how young I was, and how many stories I lived between now and then.  Until that day, though, I will write about things only my girlfriend should know, and trust that not everywhere I’ve left needs to stay abandoned.

Here’s to the fancy shoes costing only $25 the next time they’re on my feet,

jameson.