Gracie and I have been a little short in the pocketbook lately. Two freelance writers, on the verge of the poorhouse? Who knew!

Anyway, First we look into pharmaceutical testing. Me, I'm underweight -- too skinny for their criteria. Gracie smokes: red check for her. Oh -- wait -- the pharmaceutical tester had an upcoming study on a anti-smoking gum, and the testees had to be smokers. That hope was dashed quickly, based on the fact that Gracie had four molars removed along with her wisdom teeth. Yes, part of their screening was to ask if you've got all your natural teeth. Not enough molars, no chewing-gum test. Every time I've had a blood test for anything, the doctor raises an eyebrow at my cholesterol level, which is unnecesarily high regardless of the food I eat. At this point, we're a little disapointed at how little our bodies are worth. We can't even sell them to test the latest anti-anxiety medication or see if our skin gets blotchy from the newest medical creams and salves.

One night while watching TV we caught a little note, a voiceover during the public service announcements, about making money donating plasma at Biolife. They say we could make $200 a month -- each! -- by coming in twice a week for an hour or two. Take a part-time job, 20 hours a week at minimum wage, that's $140, plus they take taxes out. At Biolife, Gracie and I can spend four hours a week, cooperatively reading, and we can make $100. The numbers speak for themselves: for far less work, doing something we do already (sitting and reading) we can pay our rent.

I went through their website, checking the obvious things. I was worried about being disqualified for herpes, but they didn't say anything against that. Same for nicotine use. No alcohol for 24 hours before donating is doable. We've both been tested and cleared for the nastiest of STDs, neither of us have had intimate contact with anybody else since those tests, so we were satisfied we were clean.

I called up and made appointments, and was told we'd have to come in for initial testing and a physical before we could donate. Not a problem; the paranoid part of me liked the idea of having blood tests done for free (see how that cholesterol is doing). New instructions were added to the other restrictions: eat a protien-filled meal and drink 20oz water before coming in, and no caffiene, either. No Tylenol for 24 hours. We could do those things, no problem.

We arrived at Biolife, got ourselves settled, and I was called first. I went through the general stuff: signing papers, taking a picture for my file, verifying things are truthful and accurate, etc. I was taken back to the 'milking floor' and a technician checked my veins to make sure I was physically able to donate; both arms checked out fine.

Back at the counter, I was given a binder. I was to read every page carefully while waiting for the nurse to do my full physical. I was to pay close attention to the "MUST NOT DONATE" page, because I'd be quizzed.

The "MUST NOT DONATE" page probably had another title, but those three words were in huge bold letters at the top of the page, to make sure that nobody misunderstood the purpose of the words therein.

The page asked: have I partaken of intravenous drugs since 1977, or had sex in the last year with someone who has partaken of intravenous drugs since 1977? Nope, checked that one off.

Next: Have I had sex with another man since 1977, or had sex in the past 12 months with a man who has had sex with another man since 1977? Nope, another good one.

Have I had sex for money since 1977, or have I had sex with someone in the past 12 months who has had sex for money since 1977?

The wording, in short, means to weed out prostitutes, or men who've been to a prostitute in the past year. However, there's a deeper problem in the wording.

See, Gracie, as you may know from her website, was an escort in her youth. No apologies, I have never had a problem with it, and it really doesn't affect our lives. Well, until now.

Gracie, according to their definition, has had sex for money since 1977.

And, in the past 12 months, I've had sex with her.

Hell, I really hope that in upcoming periods of 12 months I'll get to have sex with her many, many more times. While we haven't tossed around the "M" word much, I'm expecting it to happen eventually, even as I'm expecting to get a talking to for mentioning marriage in my blog.

Anyways, I stared at the money-for-sex for quite a while, reading it for deeper meaning; could there be an exception? Am I missing something? After what seemed like ten minutes, I took the binder over to Gracie.

"We've got a problem; look."

I show it to her, and we go up to the counter together.

"Excuse me..." I say, calling over the paramed who originally helped me with my paperwork. "We have a problem; both of us fit into " (gesturing at the page of Non-Donation) "something on this page."

"Really? Which one?"

I blush, Gracie tenses. "This one here." I point, she pauses a second, apparently thinking I'm the prostitute, and says she'll get a nurse.

The nurse, a genial mature lady with a smile, calls me into her office and asks me to explain.

"My girlfriend, in her youth was an escort, and I've, well, been with her in the last year, so I think we're disqualified...unless there's an exception of some sort, but we understand...."

"Oh, no," she says, "there's no exceptions. But I want to make sure we're reading this right."

She places a finger on the page, and reads along, saying each word carefully and with great analysis.

After she finishes the sentence, she laid down her decision. "Sorry, it really does disqualify you. I guess your youth catches up with you, huh?"

"Well," I said, with an amused smile, "1977 was a long time ago, you know."

I returned to the lobby and summoned Gracie, explaining our disqualification. She gathered up her papers (she'd brought along work for Tit-Elation to occupy herself) and we headed towards the door.

As I was almost outside, the nurse called me back, started to talk, then decided we better do it in the privacy of her office.

Back in her office, she had a well-meaning smile when she said, "you know, if you and her break up, after a year you can come back to donate."

"Thanks," I said, smiling back, and headed back towards the door. Gracie and I laughed about it all the way to our van.

I must say, BioLife was very nice through everything (even though I had a lot of trouble making that first appointment), but I wonder just how many people don't answer truthfully. Let's say I had a gay fling in high school (I didn't) -- Gracie would be disqualified, even if I had been embarrased and never told anyone. How many people have tried heroin once, hated it, and never did it again? I know more than one person in that boat; they, too, would be disqualified, along with their current spouses and partners. Even those college students who filled the lobby at Biolife: how do they know, for certain, that the gal they dated last spring hadn't been turning tricks to pay for books her freshman year? And that 'they pay me for my time, not the sex' is a legal exception, not a moral one; escorts know what their being paid for, ultimately.

Many people believe that their transgressions of youth disappear once they become responsible members of society; politicians are great examples of writing off youthful frivilousness as inconsequential. The self-filtering of right-v-wrong would lead a lot of people to overlook their past transgressions and provide technical-untruths to the nurse. Little do they realize, there's no 'technically' exceptions. The reason they screen this way is because grey areas are intolerable. At first, Gracie seemed ready to overlook it and answer 'no,' but I'm often told I'm "the good one," and I felt honesty was necessary here. We couldn't donate.

So, we haven't found any part of our bodies that's worth anything to anybody. It's a bit ironic, because the value of Gracie's body during her escort days, $200 an hour, is our undoing. Imperfect specimens we are, not worth a dime, like a horse destined for the glue factory. We'll keep looking, I suppose; we've got to be worth something to somebody.

Gracie has wrangled a who's-who of erotica and sexuality to discuss the political climate of porn today. They all had relatively similar responses, and all in line with what you'd expect from the oppressed side, but that doesn't make it less relevant. Because of the murky realm of what pornography and obscenity are, in today's US legal climate it's up to an observer to decide if any item meets the definition of 'obscene.'

While that might not scare you, you might want to consider it from a logical standpoint. This means that the creation or ownership of an item itself is not the illegal event -- the accusation by the observer(s) who determined the condition of obscenity is the event that makes the item illegal.

Accusing someone of speeding is expected to be accompanied by evidence -- a radar gun, a police observer, or an expert who measured tire skid marks and impact results -- that shows factually that the event meets a legal threshhold for legality. Simply saying, "I think they were driving too fast," is not enough to cause conviction for speeding, even if you can find people who agree with you and can make a good point for the appropriate driving speed. Even if the accusation of driving too fast results in a speed limit change, the driver will not be punished for speeding.

Obscenity, however, works this way: the opinion of the observer is the key decider, and how convincing their accusation is will either get their opinion upheld or denied. A business transparently and openly selling nudie magazines for years could find themselves on the recieving end of an obscenity accusation, regardless of the number of customers who partake or the lack of objections until that point, simply due to how eloquent their accuser is. In fact, a key aspect of the obscenity law covers anything that a person could masturbate to - the definition of 'prurient interest'. Take a long, hard look at the 'prurient' things you partake of on a regular basis, or are available to you if you chose. The other defining points of literary/artistic value and community standards are nebulous at best...and change based on public opinion, not on legal definitions.

This establishes sexuality as an inherently illegal act, awaiting discovery by an offended observer willing to prove lack of artistic value and violation of community standards.

It is a sinisterly slow-moving process by which Hefner could find himself, after decades of support, twisting on the recieving end of an offended population's short stick. It would be ignored, because today they started with the animal porn, and then the obscenely large vibrators, and then the anal sex...and then the strip clubs that go panty-free...and then companies taking pictures of legally naked adults but neglected to obtain verification of age...and then the companies that photograph naked women at all...and then what? Well, if it's as bad as animal porn, then it must be horrible -- all the sick, horrible, obscene things that need to be made illegal. And who would defend Playboy against an obscenity definition? Defending Playboy when it's an obscene, disgusting publication as bad as beastiality! Not so, but the pursuers of obscenity are leaning in that direction.

Videotaping you and your partner having sex is prurient and lacks artistic value - and do you think it'd be hard to find someone to accuse you of violating societal standards? Phone sex lacks artistic value, is prurient in interest...and if your community decides it's unaccaptible, you are no longer protected by the 1st Amendment -- obscenity is not protected speech. You may think that you can live without strip clubs and the Spice channel, but they are not so far separated from the things that arouse your sexual being.

Extreme? Yes, but we've all done naughtier things than phone sex and videotaping sex: Kinsey has told us so. The common attitude is, "if it might be illegal and you don't want to defend it in court, don't do it." However, take a look at how your sexuality influences your life: they are ingrained with each other, you obscene thing.

My solution: obscenity should be limited to definable harm: public nudity could cause emotional harm to the unexpecting viewer, child pornography and beastiality cause harm to participants that cannot give consent, and rough sex should be subject to the same definitions that assault cases are subject to. This does not criminalize the sexual act -- it criminalizes the direct effects the sexual act has on the participants and society.

Hooray! The ever-pleasant sex~kitten.net has included another thing I wrote. It's a review of the iconic hentai anime La Blue Girl.

The fact that I'm fucking the owner of Sex~Kitten has nothing to do with it ;)

I don't really have much else to say except to ambush you with stop-motion RealDoll cartoons. Considering the South Park guys are being punished for hot marionette-on-marionette action, there's some strange mojo going on over sex with human substitutes. Note that there's no real sex acts in these cartoons, the only rules broken are the ones about human decency. The realism of the RealDoll makes these seem more like necrophiliac fun than the impersonation of life.

A coupla nights back, my gal invited me to paruse her pornography collection. Four or five boxes of magazines, ranging from hokey 1980s Hustler to classy 1960s Playboy, to some strange nudist magazines from the 1950s.

This experience taught me that pornography is supposed to be a solitary thing. It's linked to your imagination, something introverted, and not designed to be cooperative. Mostly all we did was make snide comments about the women and men, point out horribly crude cartoons, and gaze in wonder at the poorly airbrush-obscured gentials in the nudist mags.

On my own, I'da probably gotten turned on by the pics -- but with Gracie there, it's doesn't compare. Right there's a woman who I can actually touch, kiss, fuck, and hold - no imagination required. How can porn beat that? We had our laugh, sorted them into "keep" and "sell on eBay," and went into the bedroom to give ourselves a hardcore pornographic experience of our very own. No imagination required!

As some of you may know, my dearest Gracie was an escort once upon a time, and friendly BigBlonde is one right now. It took me a while to warm up to the whole sex-for-money idea, I'm still not completely comfortable with it, but knowing that real women, non-fucked-up women, do this to pass the time and make a few bucks, I've come to accept it.

So, I bring, guess what, a link for you! Belle Du Jour is a 'call girl' in the England metropolitan area. She's got some pretty salacious things in her blog, but (like this sex-industry blog) she also shows that, yes, she's a real woman, with odd thoughts and miscellany to deal with in her life.

As you can see on the right, I read Adult Backwash. Over there is a writer calling herself 'Gracie' -- and she's a retired prostitute. Sorry, sorry -- "retired escort".

She intrigues me, mostly because I can't really wrap my mind around the entire concept of prostitution. What does a guy get out of it that's worth the money?

Still, there's some promise in the business end of hookers (no, not that end). Here's Gracie's take on the legalization of prostitution, from her website Sex-Kitten.Net.