[Photo via renewleeds]

I'm in a bit of a pickle.

I don't like having to whine and beg for money, help... anything, really. Especially on a blog where people come here to enjoy my writing. However, I've gotten to the point where I'm willing to try anything, so I'm pulling out all the stops.

If you follow me on Twitter, you've probably read me whining about my current visa/job situation. To summarize: I'm a UK citizen, and have been living in the US for four years, as I was attending college here on a student visa. I just graduated from said college, and I'm currently completing an internship that lasts until the beginning of September. Basically, I need to get a "real" job by then. "Real" as in non-temporary, and requiring higher education, i.e. nothing menial like being a dishwasher or waitress, though I'd be perfectly willing to do something like that to get by, if I were allowed to. I also need to get hired by a company that's willing to shell out a couple of thousand dollars to sponsor my work visa. If I get a job, hence the visa, after October 2010, the visa doesn't go into effect until Oct 2011. Which means I'll be forced to leave the country for a year. (Although, my current visa, which is student-work-experience, is good until December, provided I'm interning or volunteering somewhere.)

I probably don't need to state that, because of all this, I'm under quite a large amount of pressure.

In many ways, I feel like the US is my home now. My friends are here. I believe that there is more freedom here, compared to my hometown (Hong Kong), for me to do what I want to do, i.e. pursue artistic expression and find communities to support me in that, to be queer and sex-positive and kinky and involved in causes that are important to me... Hell, a few weeks in New York resulted in more new acquaintances and social opportunities than months in Hong Kong. And the clincher: I'd have to be away from L for a year, and we'd only be able to see each other after months at a time, if that. Being forced to leave all the other stuff? That would be upsetting and saddening, but having to leave L would be... gut-wrenching.

So what I'm asking is for... anything you might have that would help. If you know of any resources regarding companies that often hire internationals, or any companies that are hiring in general, or any words of advice on how I could deal with this... If you need to know more: my background is in English, publications & writing, and clearly I have some knowledge of web-stuff. I'd prefer to be in Communications and to stay in the North East, but really don't care what field I end up in or what area I end up in at this point.

Thank you all so much.

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I'm also immensely excited and happy, but that doesn't mean I can't be scared as well, right?

L & I have explored so many things together - in every respect, but I'm focusing on sexuality, here - and the more we explore, the more I feel as if a certain momentum is building. Also, it seems the further we go, the more likely a D/s aspect is going to come into play. L is in no way or form a submissive, and neither am I with him, not all the time. And in terms of our personalities and our relationship, there isn't a clear person who is "in charge." I quite like it that way. Nevertheless, sooner or later, in the bedroom, I'm going to end up bossing him around.

Upon pondering his visit, I find possibilities & imaginings flitting through my mind, hence a sneaking insistence that I can't not try them now that I know that I can. I mean, presumably. It's much easier to simply fantasize about things without attempting to enact them. Without becoming a reality, they're infinitely filmreel pristine perfect. Also, being the one who wants to do nasty things to the other, well, not to state the obvious, but you kind of have to be the one to come up with the plan. I have a good idea of what he likes; of what he wants me to do with him. But even so, I'm preoccupied with silly little grievances like: I don't have a cane, where can I get a cheap cane? And will that particular one work? I want to bend him over the end of the bed and tie his ankles to the bed's feet, but my bed is lame and doesn't have feet, it only has wheels located closer to the center, how will I get around that? And, most importantly: what if he ends up not liking what I'm doing? What if I fuck up?

Being a switch (and yes I've finally decided to claim switch) can be really irritating. I know that he wants me to hurt him, that he wants me to control him... That he's taken audio files of himself jacking off because he wants me to listen to him & know what thinking about me does to him. I know all this. But I still haven't quite managed to tap into that raw energy that I know is there; to tap into the desire to see him marked up and prone and open and willing to do whatever (within reason) I tell him to. My conflicting desire to have him do those things to me sometimes interferes. See: my last post. He's not the kind of person to lay there and take whatever I dish out; he reacts, he grabs me, makes me hurt. And instead of fighting, like half of me wants to, I typically give in to what the other half wants, which is... to give in.

The thought "maybe I'm not really dominant" enters my mind, even though I know that that's just silly. There is no right way to do something... as much as I know that, I'm intuitively inclined to think that there is, and that I'm not fitting it.

Even though I'm worrying about this, I know at the end of everything, I'll simply listen to me and to him and to what we want; and that even if my plans don't work out, we'll have copious amounts of rough sex anyway and it will all be fine and dandy.

Edit: As always, after writing about something that preoccupied me, I find that I'm not thinking about it as much and not even sure why I was so worried about it in the first place. Ah, the therapeutic powers of writing.

Edit again: After the initial psychological nail-biting... exercising my creativity on this is quite... satisfying and amusing. I was envisioning possible things I could do with my room, and with items I could easily get from pharmacies and hardware stores and laying out situations in my head. Weighing what action would cause what effect. It was like composing an outfit or a writing piece, only better.

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L: So I'm a cheap slut?

Wil: You're my cheap slut!

L: [laughs] I'd totally put that on a T-shirt and wear it. "Wilhelmina's cheap slut."

Wil: Next time we're at Zeta Mu I should just write it on your chest and you can walk around shirtless.

Later...

L: What do you want for dinner?

Wil: I'm fine with leftovers. Since I'm, you know, a classless ho and stuff.

L: [laughs] I love that you just said that. Hey, you should put that on a shirt. Then we can match!

---

...yeah, I like to think of us as a subversive version of that disgustingly cute couple you wish wasn't in your line of sight on the subway.

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If your body is being groped, used, assaulted, grabbed, handled or otherwise touched without your permission [...] it would seem that you are doing something to provoke it. [...] The average person doesn’t get touched on a daily basis [...] No woman deserves to be treated like a whore, however is she happens to be wearing the uniform….

This post was written in response to Britni, who wrote about her upsetting harassment at a bar, where she was humped and almost penetrated without her consent. What shocks me is that the response I quoted is on a blog that is written by a woman, and someone who I perceived as sex-positive, until now. She didn't write the post herself, but put it on her site so I assume she agrees with the overall sentiment enough to post it, which is just as ridiculous.

I've refrained from writing about rape culture and victim-blaming because I feel that everything worth saying has already been said, and there's little that I can add to the conversation. However, it blows my mind that so many people just aren't getting it: the rapist/harasser is the cause of the rape/harassment. The victim may have made some bad decisions, but that didn't cause the violation, and it was not the victim's fault. The only person who caused it to happen, and who should be blamed for it, is the violator.

Why is that so difficult to understand?

So many of the posts and comments I've read about this issue have just been assertive re-iterations of the same message due to, it seems like, the large amount of schmucks out there who aren't willing to open up their minds and attempt to comprehend what is being communicated to them.

A few days ago, a man groped my ass in the middle of the street. I was going home, drunk and alone, from a party at 2 a.m. Thinking back, I shouldn't have gone home alone. I shouldn't have gone home that late. Those actions were contrary to my own common sense, and to what any friend or family member has ever advised me. But that hardly matters. What matters is some guy came up to ask me the time, actually blocked my path when I tried to avoid him, and then grabbed me. I didn't notice him as I walked up to him, but when he came to speak to me I realized he had been loitering in the shadows next to one of the buildings, and had probably waiting for someone to walk past him so he could do that.

On the other hand, I was wearing a sundress - nothing that showed a lot of thigh or cleavage - and still had good motor coordination so didn't look obviously drunk. I was walking the mere three blocks from the subway to my apartment. And both of my (female) roommates had assured me that the neighborhood was safe and that they had both walked back late at night with no trouble. While I've just moved to the area, they have been living here for a year already.

I think that anecdote makes it obvious that none of the details of the event really mattered. I just had the bad luck to run into that guy.

I don't even know why I'm bothering to address the claim that victims might be to blame. Really I shouldn't even be dignifying it with a response, but it's clear that some people need some kind of counter-evidence.

I was talking to the Inventor about this, and he compared victim-blaming in rapes and assaults to victim-blaming in traffic accidents. Someone died in a car crash? Shit, they must have been driving too fast. They probably weren't careful enough. That couldn't happen to me. Basically: people blame the victim because it gives them the illusion that they can somehow control what happens to them. If they're careful enough, they won't get raped or involved in a traffic accident.

Well, you know what? It's a scary thought, but it could happen to you. Nothing you do will change that. If you happen to run into a horny asshole who doesn't give a shit about other peoples' feelings and personal space, and if you don't have the ability to defend yourself, it might happen to you.*

The bottom line is that it's pointless to point at the victim and somehow try to make them to blame. They aren't. The victim did not cause the violator to violate them. The violator chose to do what they did, and they should face the consequences and take responsibility for their actions. I have no fucking idea why so many people think that they deserve pity, coddling, and enabling. They don't.

* Note: Not to say that I believe you should engage in risky behavior just for the hell of it. If you know a certain area is dangerous, it's probably a good idea to avoid it. What I'm trying to say is that even if you take precautions, that doesn't mean you're 100% immune to danger.

Further Reading:

- Rape Prevention Tips and Victim Blaming

- It is not your fault

- Stop Street Harassment

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[via hckyso]

Yeah, I kind of disappeared the last three weeks or so, pretty conspicuously. Quite a bit has been going on in my life lately, to say the least, and I don't think I'll be blogging or writing reviews until things have settled down a bit:

- I just officially graduated two weeks ago! As opposed to being done with classes/requirements, but not having "walked" or received my diploma. My mother came up to visit me. It was her first time in the US or at my college. It was very interesting, and went better than I anticipated. The ceremony was... bemusing, and kind of boring, but I guess I feel glad that I experienced it.

- I moved to New York City soon after. I got a paid summer internship, and luckily one of Girl's roommates was moving out, so I moved in with her. I'm hoping to find a more permanent job so I can stay in the US / in New York longer than just the summer.

- I'm currently visiting my friends the Emperor & the Wanderer in Chicago, which has been lovely but also a little charged. I hadn't seen them in more than a year.

- About a month ago, at Zeta Mu, I met a guy who I will refer to as L. I can honestly say it was like at first sight, as unlikely and cheesy as that sounds. I had abandoned hope of anything happening between us because he was kind of seeing someone else at the time, but after we had hung out quite a bit, he decided to stop seeing her in favor of trying to pursue something with me. I had toyed with the idea of trying to "compete" for him, but ditched the idea pretty quickly, and was fully ready to just be friends. I'm happy that I did that, because now I know that he chose to do what he did because he wanted to and not because I indirectly pressured him into it. It was a difficult and sucky situation for him to have to break things off with her, and I... feel a little bad for my role in that, but then again it sounded like things with them weren't going anywhere in the first place. The only catch? He's a rising senior and I just graduated. Yeah. We decided to do the long distance thing, though, which so far is working out well. We text and talk frequently and he's already coming to visit me this week.

So... a lot has happened! I haven't even had time to fully move in yet and clean up the apartment. I start my job early July. I suppose once I've moved in I'll get back to yapping about sextoys and such.

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[Graphic by Juliettia]

I've never really been involved with EdenFantasys, but I thought it might be beneficial for my readers to know what has been going on with them, in case you shop or write there. You might want to reconsider doing so.

If anyone has other links you think I should include here, or if some of my information is inaccurate and you wish to correct me, please leave me a comment.

EdenFantasys History of Fail(s)

2008

- Sexblog giant Always Aroused Girl works on blogging & PR projects for EF, but is refused payment for her work, and so sues her employer and dukes it out in court, with little success.

- Another sexblog giant, Essin' Em, works on developing a reviewer program and bringing in new products to the site. Her employer gives her a hard time when she leaves an IM conversation with him to take care of a friend who was just beaten up by her husband, then berates her for not mentioning EF in an interview she gave which had nothing to do with the company, and doesn't pay her her affiliate commissions in a timely manner.

- EF agrees to sponsor the 2009 NYC Sexblog Calender, then backs out at the last minute.

- The Google Spreadsheet that contains reviewers' confidential information (full name, physical address, along with their blog name and URL) is made public due to an ex-employee's fuck up. EF claims that using Google Spreadsheets is not how they typically run their business, which Essin' Em points out to be a blatant lie.

2010

- That Toy Chick blogs about how she was also forced to legally fight for pay that was her right.

- Epiphora, one of the most prolific sextoy bloggers out there, is banned from EF's forums for no apparent reason. EF says that she was banned for "drama, rudeness and overall negativity", but it appears that she was banned merely for stating her honest opinion. She was banned without being contacted about it first, without any of her posts being flagged, and EF goes on to publicly humiliate her in their forums under the guise of "being transparent." One contributor decides to leave EF for good over this issue, and a whole bunch of posts are written in Epiphora's support:

~ Essin' Em: EdenFantasys, Not a Place I Trust

~ AAG: Problems with EdenFantasys, Take Nine Thousand

~ Garnet: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

~ Sarah Sloane, who used to be on the editorial staff of EF's SexIs magazine: Money, ethics and real sex-positivity

~ Britni: Bad Move, EdenFantasys

~ Carnivalesq: EdenFallacys

~ The Blogging Slave: EdenFantasys.com Debacle

~ Toys in Love: When Push comes to Shove...

~ Woman's Tribune: Eden Fantasys, A Sex Shop No One Can Trust

~ Erosblog: Edenfantasys.com Shoots Itself in the Balls... Again

- Maymay, who runs Maybe Maimed, Kink on Tap and Male Submission Art, and who also happens to be a professional computer programmer, discovers that EF's linking practices are unethical. (This post has been cross-posted here, here, here, here and here, and Maymay is encouraging people to re-post the entire entry, or excerpts of it, in case he gets a Cease and Desist notice.) Basically, EF pretends to link back to its reviewers, contributors, people who they've done link-exchanges with, even companies whose products they sell... but they actually don't. The links don't work. This prevents others from getting traffic from all of EF's sites, and ensures that EF will appear higher in Google search results. Google specifically points out that behavior like this is unethical. In his post, Maymay also outlines actions you can take in response to this. You can report EF to Google here.

Internet sex toy retailer Web Merchants, Inc., which bills itself as the “sex shop you can trust” and does business under the name EdenFantasys, has implemented technology on their websites that actively interferes with contributors’ content, intercepts outgoing links, and alters republished content so that links in the original work are redirected to themselves. Using techniques widely acknowledged as unethical by Internet professionals and that are arguably in violation of major search engines’ policies, EdenFantasys’s publishing platform has effectively outsourced the task of “link farming” (a questionable Search Engine Marketing [SEM] technique) to sites with which they have “an ongoing relationship,” such as AlterNet.org, other large news hubs, and individual bloggers’ blogs.

Articles published on EdenFantasys websites, such as the “community” website SexIs Magazine, contain HTML crafted to look like links, but aren’t. When visited by a typical human user, a program written in JavaScript and included as part of the web pages is automatically downloaded and intercepts clicks on these “link-like” elements, fetching their intended destination from the server and redirecting users there. Due to the careful and deliberate implementation, the browser’s status bar is made to appear as though the link is legitimate, and that a destination is provided as expected.

For non-human visitors, including automated search engine indexing programs such as Googlebot, the “link” remains non-functional, making the article a search engine’s dead-end or “orphan” page whose only functional links are those whose destination is EdenFantasys’s own web presence. This makes EdenFantasys’ website(s) a self-referential black hole that provides no reciprocity for contributors who author content, nor for any website ostensibly “linked” to from article content. At the same time, EdenFantasys editors actively solicit inbound links from individuals and organizations through “link exchanges” and incentive programs such as “awards” and “free” sex toys, as well as syndicating SexIs Magazine content such that the content is programmatically altered in order to create multiple (real) inbound links to EdenFantasys’s websites after republication on their partner’s media channels.

A similar slew of posts crop up in response:

~ Garnet: Business Ethics

~ She Posts: EdenFantasys Accused of Hoarding Links

~ Rayne: We're Just Waiting, Hoping... Giving the Benefit of the Doubt

~ Sarah Sloane: Beyond Disgusted... Partly with Myself

~ Tom Allen: Beast of Eden

~ Figleaf: Web Merchants, Inc and EdenFantasys Unfortunate, Unethical, Link-Hiding Policies

~ Menstrual Poetry: EdenFantasys: Crumbling Community

- Britni posts to EF's forums, linking to Maymay's entry. The post is removed in less than a day. So much for EF being transparent! Luckily, both Britni and AAG took screencaps of the forum thread.

- EF posts a response to Maymay's entry, which basically reads: bullshit, bullshit, placating-PR-speak, more bullshit. They claim that they're using linking practices that many other big websites use, in order to prevent viral links. Hmm.

- Maymay explains why, exactly, their explanation is bullshit. (Cross-posted here.) (More information can be found here.)

- When EF forum members start questioning EF's practices, voicing their concern, or, in some instances, doing nothing at all, EF responds by locking their accounts and deleting threads and posts, even though they claim to support freedom of speech and claim to not censor their membership. Again, with no warning or contacting of the members who posted the comments in question.

~ Juliettia: EdenFallacys

~ Britni: EF Continues to Dig its Own Grave

~ Woman Tribune: EdenFantasys: A Sex Shop No One Can Trust

~ DarlingDove: What I Tried to Say On EF

~ Forum Discussion Screenshot via Mistress Kay uploaded by AAG

~ Forum Discussion Screenshot via Of Sex and Law uploaded by AAG

- EF explains that they are disabling these accounts and posts as a "cooling off period." They go on to add a FAQ thread, where they elaborate more on the locked accounts, as well as their linking practices, claiming that "there has never been an intention, or agreement, or any commitment to link back to a writer," "there is nothing illegal or even suspicious in our business practices" and "if you read negative posts about us, look a few lines below or to the side, you will always find our competition’s promos," none of which makes any sense.

- Sex educator and writer Violet Blue comments that EF may be looking at a reputation crisis, and says she will be writing more about the scandal shortly. Tristan Taormino re-tweets about the debacle, and sex toy stores such as myticklespot begin commenting on it, as well.

- In spite of it all, a number of people are deciding to stay with EF because of other factors.

There's a good amount of discussion, re-tweeting, etc going on on Twitter under the hashtags #EFLies, #EdensFallacy and #EdensFucked.

Epiphora has put together a (much more well-written) post about these events, with more past-employee-horror-stories, here.

To summarize: the biggest issue some people are taking with EF is that they claim to want to foster a community, but their actions indicate that they could care less.

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---

Interested in putting up a link or banner ad? I'm currently accepting ads from all kinds of sexuality-related websites. Ads will be displayed on the sidebar on the right, and will be visible on all pages and posts.

Why advertising on Heartbreak Nymphomania will work for you:

- I have a Google Page Rank of 4.

- I receive up to 2,000 pageviews per week, and up to 9,000 pageviews per month.

- My site content of sex toy & porn reviews, erotica, and essays on BDSM, queer issues, and sexuality, attracts readers that would be interested in your site's content, as well.

If you're interested and want to know my rates, email me at wilhelmina.wang[at]gmail[dot]com, or leave me a comment!

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This post is made up of edited excerpts of an email exchange I've been having with the Emperor. I'm just sharing it here because I'd like to see if anyone has an opinion on it, or had experiences similar to this they wanted to share. I think I want what everyone in this world is looking for, in some shape or form.

---

I am a very lonely person. Today, I was thinking about how it's been ages since I was next to someone and felt like they were fully there with me. Completely present in every fiber of their being. Lately, I've been very aware of being in the same room - same bed with someone, even - and feeling such distance. And thinking that it's not so much that we're there with each other, than it is that we both happen to be in the same place at the same time. Right now, I don't feel like anybody is so much a part of my life, or me a part of theirs, than we are simply bystanders of each other's lives.

I also want very much to let people close to me. Really let them in. It's hard first of all to find someone to trust with that much of myself, and then there's the issue of feeling like I'm forcing lots of baggage on someone. It's a weighty act for the other person to be able to see me else completely. I would imagine it to be an unwanted burden many times.

I was talking to Sir a while ago, and he said something like, "it's no good to have a partner you can't unleash yourself on." And for me that applies to close friends or close... anyone, as well. I want someone to just be able to take and accept me in all my ridiculousness, but I end up feeling guilty for not filtering myself in case they won't be able to handle it.

More and more, I'm realizing the intimacy that comes from the power, violence and extreme acts that constitute BDSM. I've had little tastes of it, and want so much to experience it with someone on a deep level, but have no idea how to find it.

I want to meet someone and look at them and think: I know you. And to look at them and realize they're thinking the same thing. That we understand each other without having to say anything; that we are the same.

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You're single now.

You do not have to care about where he is, who he's with, or what he is doing. You do not have to uphold his values, do things that please him, or work on fixing the things he thinks are problematic about you. (Not unless you want to, of course.)

You do not have to ignore your lust for other people, thrust your kinky urges under the rug, or wonder if he'll care about whether or not you strip down to your underwear at one of Zeta Mu's parties. You do not have to wait around for him, call or check up on him, or sucker yourself into spending large amounts of time with him, while sacrificing time that could be spent socializing or with friends.

You do not have to care that he likes you better 10 pounds lighter, or that he likes it when you wear girly clothes. You do not have to worry about whether or not you'll offend him by calling him out on his shit, or bluntly disagreeing with him.

You do not have to take his future plans into consideration when you make plans for yourself. You do not have to give any part of yourself over to him or let him have possession of it.

You do not have to care for him any more than you want to, or are comfortable with.

---

On the other hand...

You're alone now.

You will not depend on him, expect to be the center of his attention, or expect him to be a refuge you can run to. You will not think like you are part of a unit. You find him attractive, you like cuddling with him, but there's no meaning behind any physical act you might have, except for affection and maybe lust. When you come home, you will greet him like a roommate and a friend.

You will remind yourself that your relationship was good in its way, but not satisfactory or fulfilling, and that you're better off as friends. You will remind yourself that he really did like you, and things didn't work because you weren't right for each other. He didn't replace you with somebody else. You will remind yourself that he cares about you, just not in the way that you're searching for.

You will support and be there for him as a friend, just as he's doing for you. You will encourage him in resolving his problems because you want him to be happy. If he gets what he wants, you will be happy for him.

You will be all you need. You will focus on yourself; you will work on getting fit and dress up and be industrious and work on your own projects and hang out with friends and have fun and plan your future. You will look forward to leaving here because what comes next will be adventurous, new, and exciting... and you'll have no baggage holding you back.

Photos via zhenikeyev.

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