Politicians are forever attempting to ban or control complex physical, economic or social phenomena by simply passing laws; ignorant people hail such attempts as “progressive”, but the wise recognize that such behavior is exactly equivalent to that of a primitive medicine man attempting to control the weather by shaking a rattle and doing a dance. – “Fallout”
By the beginning of September I had two months of blogging under my belt and was beginning to get the hang of the thing at last. I was starting to work ahead and even stated as much in the introduction to this month’s fictional interlude, “Greek God” (which was actually written when I was 18 years old). However, that wasn’t always the case yet; as I explained last month, many of these were written on the actual day of posting and weren’t published until later in the day: “The Doors of Perception”, for example, wasn’t posted until 9:05 PM! Though this was more difficult in many ways, it did give me a flexibility I no longer really have; “An Angry Reply” was a reaction to my first hate mail (a comment on the previous day’s column) and was posted as soon as it was written, and “One Step Forward”, my column on the decision which overturned Canada’s anti-prostitution laws in Ontario, was written within hours of my getting the news and posted the next morning.
As the introductions to these columns demonstrate, I was already getting considerable feedback from readers. People were writing in to alert me to news articles and ask questions, and I answered some of those questions in my very first (two-part) Q & A column. “He or She?” was also in response to a question, but it bears more resemblance to “The Biggest Whores” (in which I announced the censoring of Craigslist’s “adult services” section) in one important way: each contains one section I later thought better of, and recanted in a later column. Most bloggers (and even commercial news sites) will edit or even delete articles which they later find embarrassing, but I think that’s incredibly dishonest; you can’t unring a bell, and prior to the advent of the internet a newspaper or magazine couldn’t take back issues that had already been sent out. I like to treat my blog something like a print feature (hence my use of the term “column” rather than “post”), so I do the same thing print journalists used to do: issue a retraction or correction, while leaving the original untouched. Now, I fully admit I’ll correct typos or alter lines to eliminate widows (even months or years later), but I will never shove as much as one line of an essay down the memory hole. Incidentally, the correction for “He or She?” appeared in “Due Consideration”, and that for “The Biggest Whores” in “The Free Speech Mafia”.
Though my columns were starting to shorten slightly by this time, most were still above 1500 words and multi-part ones were not uncommon; “Q&A” and “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody” (my very first “hooker songs” column) were both two-parters, and “BDSM” was three. There were a few other firsts that month: “For Their Own Good” was my first column on the “condoms in porn” foolishness, “September Updates” my first update column (along with “miscellanea”, the precursor to “That Was the Week That Was”), and “Think of the Children!” the column in which I introduce the concept of “sex rays” and the earliest which to me reads like my current style for this blog (though if it were written now, I’d embed the Katy Perry video). Some features I introduced in July and August were continuing: “The Yellow Rose of Texas” was this month’s harlotography, “April” its biography of an escort I knew, and “Mabon” its holiday column; I also published two listicles (“Terminology” and “Pet Peeves”) and a collection of “New Book Reviews”.
Three of the remaining September 2010 columns are among my most often read to this day: “A Whore in the Bedroom” advises women who don’t want their husbands going to whores to give them what they want at home, and is my 7th most-read column of all time; “Black Men” explains why so many escorts refuse to see black clients, and is my 6th most-read; and “All Shapes and Sizes”, which discusses the various sizes and shapes of human genitalia, is my 3rd most-read. Finally, I published “Storyville” (a short history of prostitution in New Orleans); “Flavor of the Month” (a look at my bisexuality); “Out of Control” (the problems which arise from male sexual frustration); “Imaginary Victims” (the portrayal of sex workers as victims); and “Fallout”, in which I see the first glimmerings of a change in attitude toward sex workers.
Ah, Magic the Gathering, it’s been so long since I picked up a game…
I think one of the first columns I read was “Black Men” and ensuing shitstorm in the comments. The first column I actually left a comment on, I can’t remember the title, but the topic was on the importance of women learning to protect and defend themselves and how idiots with an agenda choose to interpret that as “victim blaming”.
Interestingly, the mail I’ve received from black men on that column is roughly 66% positive, and I’ve become very friendly with a popular blogger on black men’s issues who got angry with the column, but still respected my honesty and the fact that I had the chutzpah to write it.
That’s good to hear! I hated that some people assumed you were making generalizations when you were very clear about defining the very specific type of black men who cause the problem and why the cultural influence of race in their cases was the source of the disagreement.
Unfortunately, people will believe what they want to believe, no matter how clearly the truth is spelled out for them.
I did mention that (and people wanting to call Maggie racist over this issue take note) you did not yourself have a No Blacks Allowed policy. Whatever the reasons some hookers do, YOU did not.