Originally posted to Adult BackWash, my weekly column was Bait and Switch: Saturday June 29, 2002

I have limited experience with condoms. Partly because I don't have a penis, partly because we were never successful at using them and partly because safe sex has never been a problem for me.

I did order a condom from a website, I forget which condom maker it was now. They sent a large sized condom and I had a look at it, in the package. My husband decided I shouldn't actually open the package since he wouldn't be able to use it then. I wish I had secretly opened it and had a look. He always seemed a bit too old fashioned about that stuff. Why shouldn't I have a look at something he expects me to insert into my vagina.

We never did get much use of the condoms we tried. I really do think he was using the wrong size. Why else would they always slip off so easily? But, that isn't something easy to tell a guy who is already self conscious and not all that interested in real sex anyways. I'm at the point where being masturbated by my lover is a turn off now.

But, I am single again and I expect safe sex will become something I need to know more about. Not that I'm clueless. You would have to be living as a hermit not to have absorbed some information about safe sex these days. But, I don't know how to use a condom, what kind of condom works best, is spermicide non-allergenic, etc.

Women have been the ones expected to provide or take responsibility for birth control for way too long. At least all the safe sex is making men take their cock in hand and do something about it too. But, that doesn't mean women are ok to just lie back and leave it to them. Whatever your pleasure, use his tool the right way.

You open a door, an ordinary looking door, and walk into a room where everything is made for giants. The furniture is huge. To sit on a chair would take mountain climbing gear. To cross the carpet would be like walking through a tangled mass of weeds higher than your head. No one is in the room. It's quiet and still. On the walls you notice portraits of fairly ordinary looking people. The room is a little too warm with the massive fire burning in the fireplace on wall to your left.

What would you do? Go in and investigate or leave through the same door?

If you stay in the room continue to read. But if you leave scroll down to the next paragraph and see what happens when you make that choice.

You walk farther into the room. The fire is crackling like a forest fire. To you, it is a forest fire since even the small pieces of wood look like enormous tree trunks. Under the big couch you see something small glitter in the firelight. Taking a chance that it's not a rodent looking for a snack you explore. It turns out to be a diamond. Massive and worth a fortune if you can manage to carry it back out with you. It's heavy but it won't roll so you struggle, panting and staggering around under it's weight. But, finally you make it to the small door you came in. You open the door and half lift, half push the diamond through. Once again you are in the world you know. But now you have a diamond that will make you rich for the rest of your life.

If you leave the large sized room without exploring...

You go back through the door but you aren't where you expected to be at all. Instead everything is tiny. The room is just barely big enough for you to squeeze in all scrunched over. There is a teensy table and chairs with a miniature tea set all laid out, ready for a tea party. The table is so close to you it's almost knocked over by your knee when you wriggle around trying to get comfortable. By accident your elbow knocks a bookshelf and all the books fall down to the floor like confetti at a wedding. Picking up one book you notice your own name on the front cover. The book is a story about you! Of course, its so small you need to squint to make out the printed words inside. You realize the book is about a birthday party you had two years ago. Picking up a few other books you discover they are all about you, recording your life from the time you were born until today. There is no one around to ask about the books, how they know so much about you and who wrote them. Finding the latest, most current book you carefully turn pages until you get to the end of the writing. The journal of your life is stopped at the moment you entered this room. How curious you are now. What happens to you next?

This is my latest BackWash column. I think it turned out well.

The Shortness of Being

"Don't sell yourself short."

That is what a couple of the other managers at HerPlanet told me last night when we had our meeting over the Net. We were talking about how we all have some knowledge and together we pool that and make each of our sites and ourselves better. I agreed with that but then I commented something about how I don't have anything out of the ordinary to contribute. That is when they chimed in with "don't sell yourself short".

I was thinking about it tonight. I always assume anything I know is common knowledge. But, it's true that I know a bit about a lot of things and I don't know a lot about anything, any one thing. At least that's how I feel maybe I'm wrong and I'm just selling myself short again.

Could it be that simple? I've felt for a long time that I'm looking for a missing piece of the puzzle that is me and when I find it I will become some sort of wonder woman. A woman who can do it all, have it all and be it all. Oh no, I don't have overly high expectations at all...

Anyway, I always feel like I am struggling to catch up, that I am a fraud, hoping no one will realize all the errors of my ways, the holes in my plans, the missing link that is me. If I'm just selling myself short... then all I need to do is be contrary at how I look at myself, twist it and turn it around and look at myself in a whole new way. I love that, finding a new viewpoint, a different slant on an idea, a turn of logic and the unexpected. When someone says I'm "odd, but in a nice way" that makes my day.

Back to the short comings thing. If all I need to do is realize I'm selling myself short then how do I convince myself it's true and move on to the next step from there. Someone else told me I have a great mind. Another person said I'm wonderfully warped. If I pile all those together would that give me the height I'm lacking in the way I look at myself? I don't think so. Though they help, I still need to change my outlook from the inside out, not the other way around.

So, back to the drawing board. But, I feel I have grown a bit in my own estimation. Like Alice I have to find the 'drink me' potion to fit through the little door on my way to Wonderland.

I just updated my Kids BackWash column. I had a new idea, based on a series of books I read as a kid: Choose your Own Adventure. They were challenging. Partly to resist the temptation to read ahead and find out where each choice would lead you. Partly because you could never really tell where each choice would lead you, into treasure or peril. I see those books now and then, in the used bin at a second hand store like Goodwill or a little retailer. I don't know if anyone still publishes them. I remember they became popular enough to have some copycats back then.

I've wanted a scanner for a long time. Mostly for clip art to use on my personal websites. There is only so much I can do with ASCII art and HerPlanet isn't even all that keen on me using it at all. So far that is my only disappointment with the HerPlanet network.

Anyway, today Todd wanted to go to WalMart so I wandered around looking at this and that: magazines, sewing stuff, purses, greeting cards and the computer section. I saw the HP Photo Scanner 1000, a small scanner geared to people who want to exchange pictures (4x6) over the net. I think its perfect for what I want. It was $78.64 at WalMart, I see it online for $80 to $100.00. Online would also charge shipping and handling so WalMart would be the better choice. But, I will wait to get it when I am in Ontario rather than find out its only waranteed in the US. That is what happened with the IBM computer I bought myself just before I moved to the US and married Todd. Getting it fixed was a time consuming, frustrating process. I ended up taking it back to Ontario to be fixed. I think it was a dead motherboard. They never did tell me.

CNet has a review of the HP scanner. They give it 7 out of 10.

Ladies don't write porn, we write erotica. Ladies probably don't have fantasies about seducing, controlling and tormenting men. Ladies don't have a lot of fun, but we knew that already.

I feel odd about writing the Adult column at BackWash. I'm a nice girl, I've always been a good girl. No fooling around, no drugs, drinking or sex. Other than the that found wallet thing I was a good girl other goodie girls could look up to in admiration. That didn't seem a bad thing either. People liked me cause I was a good girl. I'm not sure I want to know what they will think if they know I secretly write erotica (now and then) and even worse! I maintain an adult column about BDSM and SEX! I shudder to think.

Do nice/ good girls (women we would hope) like erotica? Are we allowed?