I don’t get to Melbourne as much as I would like to these days but it’s always nice to come back to a place that has lots of good memories. I lived in Melbourne for ten years in the nineties while I was at university then worked for several years before I moved to Sydney.
It’s like coming back to an old friend (who has grown up a bit, works for a merchant bank, and now drives something new and imported – same person but I’m not sure if we will still get on …) time will tell I guess
John.
Stars of entertainment and sport frequent two Sydney brothels
Headlines like the one above (clickbait of the worst kind) make my blood boil.
To be fair to the journalist Eamonn Duff, he didn’t name names, explode families, ruin careers and create an orgy of public indignation. But the headline makes it sound like that’s what’s behind the link. What is the story actually about? Two “seedy” men fighting over the ownership of a modest brothel empire, and somehow a bunch of client information has been leaked to the press.
People fighting over ownership of businesses isn’t usually news – or not often anyway. So why is this article a headline story? Because it has to do with selling sex to famous people. If the client details of a couple of banks had been leaked would Eamonn have even raised and eyebrow? I doubt it (except to feel outraged to see how much money certain people have perhaps). But I think that most people would say “who cares?”, yes, people have money. Some of them put their money in the bank and have bank accounts.
Likewise, yes, people have sex, and sometimes they pay for it – for a whole load of reasons that Joe Average doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, and quite probably doesn’t want to understand (because it’s complex, doesn’t come in neat three word slogans and actually requires people to open their minds to new possibilities and problems with our society). Joe Average just wants to know which celebrity woman pays to have sex at a brothel in Sydney.
Lets get some things straight here: selling and buying sex is legal in NSW (within certain laws), just like selling and buying milk. These businesses are legal (there is no hint in the article that they have done anything wrong). The customers have broken no law by going to these places. Someone HAS however revealed private personal information to a journalist. Information that would if released utterly ruin people’s lives and careers. That’s a breach of trust at the very least. I don’t see Eamonn Duff railing against that though. No, he lapped it up, analysed it, found the juicy parts and made it a national headline.
As you can imagine client confidentiality is paramount to me as a male escort for women. If my clients don’t trust me to protect their identities then I have no business. But lets turn that around for a moment and look at it from the perspective of my clients: if they can’t be sure that I (and other providers of sex services) will protect their identities, then they are prevented from seeking out something that they need and want in their lives, that they can’t get any other way (if they could, then why would they be paying a provider like me).
I don’t do this job just to earn money. I also do it because the service I provide matters to the people I provide it to – and it matters that it is available for them. I can’t make everyone in the world, or even Sydney happy and satisfied, but to the few women who need what I offer, then I can and do make a real and significant difference to their lives. That matters to me, it gives me significant job satisfaction in an industry that most people look down on and despise.
A journalist handed private information about similarly vulnerable people needs to stop and think VERY hard about the consequences of what they are doing. I expect that Mr Duff would say “no names were mentioned, so it’s fine”, but that’s not the point. The customers, who woke up this morning (who know that they are on that list) have had their day, week (and possibly life) ruined by this non-story. They will have to think long and hard before they go out again in the future to engage a service that (like my customers) may be very important in their lives.
And why do they now have to live in fear? So that Fairfax newspapers can sell some advertising space. Our society needs to think more about values and real people and less about making money by exploiting vulnerable people. Especially when it’s so easy to beat up public interest by splashing a scandalous headline about in the news.
There is only one name that I would like to hear from Mr Duff: the name of the person who betrayed the trust of hundreds (thousands?) of clients of two legal business. Because that person should never be trusted again with people’s private information.
John.
The Guardian published an article recently with the title “I’m too self conscious about my body to have sex with someone new”. You can see it here:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/09/self-conscious-body-have-sex-someone-new
It’s a short letter from a reader who is 54, recently divorced, wants a new relationship, wants to have sex as part of her life, but is scared of what a new partner will think about her appearance.
It is a very familiar story to me. Many of the women who come to me are in exactly the same boat. They see a date with me as an opportunity to test this theory in a way that is emotionally risk free. I.e. the risk of rejection from me (as a male escort) is low, and they are not putting their self-esteem on the line with someone who they care about.
I was very pleased to see that the comments responding to this article were overwhelmingly positive. For instance:
“I’m a 38 year old man and believe me men won’t be turned off by you, boys might be but I presume you are looking for someone more mature than a teenager in a man’s body.”
“Believe me, my wobbly bits have their own wobbly bits, but once a man is attracted to you – HE DOESN’T CARE!
It’s easier said than done, I know, but I think once you get it over with, you’ll be fine. It’s incredibly liberating to feel comfortable in your skin. And if it should turn a new partner off, it’s his loss, isn’t it?”
I particularly like the second comment above: “… once a man is attracted to you – HE DOESN’T CARE!”. Words of wisdom there. And probably the most important of all. As a (straight) man, I love women, I love the female body, and I love sex. A woman having a perfect body is not what matters to me. “Sexy and attractive” starts in your head, with confidence, and belief in yourself. That’s where I make a connection with a woman – with who she is. Not what she is.
After that, sex just becomes a natural part of that connection. So don’t wait, if you are still worried, book a date with me and try it out. Or, better still, take the plunge and go to bed with that man you have had your eye on!
John.
Today has been an interesting day. Firstly I had an appointment with a new physio about an ongoing issue that I have with my lower back. Being 6’2″ is a blessing and a curse. But I think that we might have finally found the right combination of stretching and exercises to resolve the problem. The one weird thing I have noticed over the years is that sex makes lower back pain vanish completely (at least for a while!).
So, as part of my “core” strength building program to help support my back, I went to the pool here at Olympic Park and swam some laps. Not the three kilometres I would once have done, but I was happy with the outcome. Tomorrow I will swim again and go a bit further. I came home from that feeling like I had no bones in my body. That delightful feeling of being completely exhausted physically and floppy all over.
So, having had a quiet evening (and iTunes taking forever to download a movie on my very slow ADSL2 internet connection) I decided to pick up the guitar and practice some of the tunes I have been learning. Not having a piano down here in the apartment means that I have to wait until I go home again to continue that adventure and that’s not going to happen for another week or two until my back is in better shape. It’s one of the downsides of motorcycles. They are hard on your back if it’s not in great shape.
So, one hour and totally worn out fingers later I am on my way to being able to play the first line of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata Movement 3 and the most excellent riff from Dire Straights Sultans of Swing. The only downside: my left hand fingertips (which are all numb and compressed from holding down guitar strings) now fail to work reliably on my laptop track pad for some weird reason!
Anyway, my musical adventures continue and I am having real fun with them. One day soon I may even be able to play a full song.
John.
I have never had a happy relationship with playing music. Like most Australian children in the 70’s, the first instrument I picked up at school was a recorder. I didn’t learn to play it well and eventually moving on to clarinet and guitar never helped! Although I will say that I had a brief stint with the xylophone that was outstanding at around age 8!
Xylophone aside I just never managed to connect with playing music. I was similarly handicapped when it came to mathematics. Both were banes of my childhood. I really wanted to be good at both, but unlike friends and family around me I didn’t have that musical knack, or intuition, or connection that they had.
Years passed.
Now, here I am at age 42 and the music is calling me! Have you ever had that feeling of looking at something and thinking: “I know I can do that!”. I bought an acoustic guitar some time ago and have enjoyed tinkering and teaching myself how to play it – and I genuinely feel that there is now something different in my brain, because for the first time I genuinely “feel” the music. Guitar is still proving a significant challenge and one that I will continue working on, because guitar is such a great instrument to be able to play. It’s portable, sounds great on its own and is always popular.
My new discovery though is that I love piano. If you have read previous posts you will know that my partner has a piano (I made a post here about tuning the one key that was out of tune). So two days ago I sat down and started learning to play the very beautiful classical piece of music (Beethoven’s Tempest 3rd movement) that featured in the remake of the movie Total Recall. It’s a stupendous challenge for someone who A. has never played piano and B. isn’t great an patting their head while rubbing their tummy! However I have discovered that I can still read music fairly well (even if I can’t make my fingers do what the notes say – yet!). The result is that with about four sessions of practice over two days, I can basically play the first line and a half.
I am under no illusions that what I am doing is any good really, but I just LOVE being able to sit down in front of a piano and produce from it, something that actually sounds like real music. It is a fabulous experience that makes life a richer and more enjoyable thing to live. As I write this, my partner is playing the theme song from the movie Amelie (by the composer Yann Tiersen) in the living room (she is much, much better than I am), filling the house with music that is beautiful and of her own making, imperfections, hesitations and all.
There is something about live music and the people who can create it that has always captured me. From seeing cover bands in Melbourne pubs when I was at university to an individual sitting down at the public pianos that occasionally get placed around Circular Quay in Sydney. It has been one of my lifelong desires to join those ranks. Even at this late stage in my life (relatively speaking) perhaps it’s possible.
I could segue into something about sex here and perhaps I should. A comparison between learning a new skill like playing an instrument and learning about sex and what we can enjoy with our bodies. I do think that it’s a fair comparison, since most of us never get the chance to learn about sex, we just go along with the general assumption that it is something that just happens and you don’t need to learn or practice.
Well, like any instrument, the human body needs to be tuned and the skills practised if you want to create really beautiful music.
John.
I travel over the Blue Mountains regularly. A fair amount of the bush that I ride through over toward Lithgow was burned in the fires at the end of 2013. I have been startled by the stark beauty of the resulting landscape, and now the contrast of the regrowing foliage on the trees.
So, on a trip back around Christmas I stopped and took some photos of the charred bush and my bike which I thought I would share.
I was really delighted with how true to life these images are.
John.
On Sunday I was lucky enough to participate in the Sydney Skinny, for those who don’t know it, it is an open water nude swim in Sydney Harbour at Cobbler Beach. It is run each year around late February.
You can see the website here: http://www.thesydneyskinny.com.au/
The swim has two distances: a 300 meter swim and a 900 meter swim. It is arranged in “waves” of about 50 swimmers each and this year they ran more than ten waves. It’s really popular! It is also really fun. The atmosphere of the event was truly delightful. Everyone was very respectful, very relaxed, and appeared to be enjoying themselves. It’s not a race, there is no timing and no prizes, it’s a challenge only to yourself, to swim, to be nude in public, to accept yourself as you are. Not always an easy thing to do.
I am lucky enough to have been comfortable with my body, with nudity, for pretty much all of my life. Not so for everyone who was there. But I didn’t see anyone back out. Everyone stripped off and everyone swam. There is a real comfort in seeing other people around you happily taking off their clothes, and not treating it like a big deal. Just doing it. And having fun while they are doing it. It’s such a different celebration of nudity and the human body (in all shapes and sizes) than the one that is given to us by the media and the rest of society every day.
It is how I think that nudity should be treated. Not good or bad. Just natural. Something that doesn’t have to be commented upon, sexualised, or demonised. So I think that at the end of the day, this is the value of The Sydney Skinny. It lets us be ourselves and be comfortable with who we are when there is no barrier between us and the world.
If you want to try a different form of self expression and to get out in the open air then I highly recommend The Sydney Skinny. It may be challenging for you. It may be easy. But I am sure that it will be fun.
John.
You can see the latest installment in the Guardian here:
These are all good questions to be asking and the debate is always worth having. But I believe that it falls short, because I have never seen anyone discuss the merits of pubic hair in regard to actually having sex. Neatly trimmed pubic hair versus a wild bush may may give certain “signals” to a potential partner, but what about when the signaling is over and you are in bed with someone?
Well, the short answer is that pubic hair or the lack there of can make sex a very different experience for both partners. There are other factors involved too of course, like the amount of lubrication involved (natural or artificial) and condoms.
If a woman has no public hair on her outer labia, then it changes the sensations of penetration for both her and her partner. For her partner (assuming adequate lubrication) it creates a much smoother, more slippery sensation. Not more intense, not less intense – or better or worse even necessarily – but different. For the woman there may be less stimulation of the outer labia, since there is no hair to be pulling on them.
Pubic hair and its lack can become quite significant in longer sex (say more than 15 or 20 minutes). Depending upon the position/s that you are having sex in, pubic hair above the genitals (so on one’s pubic mound) can be problematic. If you have it and your partner doesn’t, or vice versa, then over time it can become abrasive. Having “neatened” pubic hair in this region I have found on occasion that I will get a little skin irritation in this area if my partner has more public hair than I do. Of course this is only really a problem when having sex in missionary position or similar where there is very close contact.
At the end of the day, I am not inclined to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t have. But I will say this: experimenting can be fun! If you have never shaved, then I highly recommend giving it a go. Try it and see what you think and don’t let fashion or anyone else tell you what is right for you.
If you do decide that being partly, mostly, or completely bare works for you, then I highly recommend laser hair removal. It is quick, mostly permanent and getting to be quite cheap these days. It has worked well for me and once done avoids the difficulties of ingrown hairs and the need for regular shaving.
John.
I have been a cyclist of varying degrees of fitness for most of my life, but in recent years, I haven’t ridden as much as I would like to. Other exercise, like Pilates, free weights, walking, and interval sprints have been the norm.
But today I felt like cycling. So, seizing the moment I donned the appropriate clothing and headed for the garage. Only to find that some inconsiderate person had managed to steal the frame pump off my bike which was locked up inside my security cage in the garage! Disappointing doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling.
It is upsetting to have stuff that you have worked hard to buy stolen from you. But it’s worse having good habits like exercise interrupted. Things can be replaced, but that ride is lost to me forever.
Thankfully I was able to walk and do some interval sprints instead, so I got my exercise for the day, but I was really looking forward to going for a roll.
John.
As Justin Timberlake’s character said in the movie In Time: “You can do a lot in a day”.
It’s true, you can do a lot in a day. You can do even more in a year. And we have a brand new one ahead of us. The hard part is knowing what to do with it. All too often in life we find ourselves trapped in the mundane requirements of existing: work, bills, stuff that never seems to add anything meaningful to our lives beyond day to day survival.
All too often we are suppressing the things that we really feel and want, to allow ourselves to get along. All too often one of those things is our sexuality. It is almost inevitable that sex will come last given the way our society treats it – something that is wrong, or that we should be guilty about. But it’s not.
Our sexuality is a core part of who we are. When we deny that part of ourselves we distort our personality and our lives, often in unexpected and detrimental ways.
When we explore our sexuality, enjoy it, and give it a fair share of our time and energy then we can relieve hidden pressures, feel happier, and actually be able to engage with the world more effectively in other areas of our life.
Why not make this the year that your sexuality is a priority? You can do a lot in a year. Or even in a day.
John.