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Feb. 15th, 2010

Beauty

Friendships

I have recently utterly failed at seeing people. But, given that 2010 is the year for seeing the people I care about instead of setting up yet another project/ shoot/ research project, I am here to fix such stuff.

LJ has some awesome people I don't see enough of or speak to enough. So, in no particular order:

[info]wild_heart I owe you an email. Prepare to receive in the next day or so, complete with love and photos :)

[info]clockworkwasp I know Ben wants to talk to Mat about tanks and Serbia and blowing stuff up etc, but would you like to go out for dinner? Or tea? Or AP? :-D Also, need to chat about your wonderful birthday plans. Looks like it shall be fab. [Also: Angels sale! Failed to see you before you left, but did you find fun stuff? <3 ]

[info]synesis Are you alive? If so, the tea must be had at some point, along with Debussy, bolly and pretentious snark.

[info]duranorak You gave me poetry then my life exploded in chaos. I <3 Gretel in darkness; no, I had never seen it before. Thank you. Tea would be lovely sometime if you are still in the mood for a lazy day with bad movies. I would love to see you.

[info]tyrell Let there be dinner! I'll cook, you and Ben can get foolishly excited about animals :)

[info]ebee Tea tomorrow, then we can plot more stuff. Ben and I *might* be able to make pancakeage tomorrow, depending on workloads etc. Give me a call anytime today.

Feb. 14th, 2010

Beauty

Update...

The last 24 hours was spent bursting into tears when Ben came home early from his business trip in order to be here for Valentines day, being exhausted and ill from the past week (or month), applauding the woman who "just couldn't take it anymore" in the restaurant in Wimbledon Village and gave some of the diners a short, sharp lecture on how to eat asparagus "with the fingers, darling, the fingers; treat it like fellatio if you must", feeling rather unappreciated when someone jumped the gun, bathing a very muddy Freyja, drinking gratuitous amount of lemsip and deciding to go to Cuba by standing Ben in front of the travel section in the bookstore and telling him to choose one.

That is probably an ok snapshot of life at the moment. It misses out the huge amounts of work I'm doing for uni, the charity work, the club, spiritual work, photo shoots, tutoring and the way my body consistently fails me; I've been to too many doctors recently. Doing all of this is also wearing me down quite a lot and leaving me with very little time for things like sleep. Or blogging.

It's all ok though. 2010 is proving to be busy, challenging and somewhat confusing in places. People keep failing in odd little ways, which frustrates me. I'm losing faith in a couple of people in a big way. It is very much a time of spring cleaning things, from relationships to my own ideals, to shoes and spirituality. It is very much needed. But I could really use some more time to do it right now; I'm worried that because I'm so busy I'm just going to gloss over some things that could cause a lot of hurt later.

But equally, 2010 is awesome. Friends, love, spiritual life, reconnecting with people and occasional bursts of utter indulgence keep me sane and mightily happy.

Plus, Caprica! Glee! Concerts! Royal Albert Hall! Dissertation concepts approved! Consistent 80%+ grades in my favourite module! Charity work! Photography stuff being amazing!

Some things suck, but whilst I have love in my life, I'm not really going to complain.

Dec. 11th, 2009

Beauty

Amusing meme for a chilled out Friday :)

On the twelfth day of Christmas, frozen_in_honey sent to me...
Twelve talismans drumming
Eleven fishnets piping
Ten scalpels a-leaping
Nine corsets baking
Eight swans a-writing
Seven colours a-painting
Six cameras a-reading
Five pe-e-e-eg dolls
Four crafty thingies
Three frivolous things
Two seamed stockings
...and a music in a philosophy.
Get your own Twelve Days:


In 2009, frozen_in_honey resolves to...
Cut down on my reading.
Backup my lipstick regularly.
Find a new occultism.
Start a reiki fund.
Apply for a new paganism.
Become a better rope.
Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

Nov. 10th, 2009

Beauty

Seven Planets Wines...

Some people asked for the recipes at the Abraxas launch, so I thought I should post them :-)

Sol

3/4 bottle of red wine
300ml orange juice
2-3 bay leaves
10-20 cloves depending on taste
Pinch of saffron
Brown sugar to taste

Gently heat for about 20 mins until flavour is fully developed. Strain.

Venus

Half a bottle of rose wine
Splash of pomegranate juice
Splash of rose water
Splash of apple juice
Petals from one rose
10-20 crushed cardamoms to taste
Large spoonful of honey to taste

Heat as above. Strain.

Luna

Pint of milk
Spoonful of honey
Pinch of saffron
A few crushed cardamoms
Splash of amaretto

Heat as above. Strain.

Mars

3/4 bottle of red wine
200ml orange juice
Chopped ginger root to taste
1 spoonful ginger syrup
Sprinkle of black pepper
Brown sugar to taste

Heat as above. Strain.

Mercury


3/4 bottle of white wine
2 spoonfuls of lemongrass
50-100ml still lemonade
3 tablespoons of lavender
Honey to taste

Heat as above. Strain.

Jupiter

3/4 bottle of red wine
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
Splash of port
Brown sugar to taste

Heat as above. Strain.

Saturn

3/4 bottle of red wine
2 spoonfuls of poppy seeds
Long splash of creme de cassis. Looooong.
Splash of sloe gin
Little bit of black treacle
Brown sugar to taste

Heat as above. Strain.

 

Oct. 28th, 2009

Beauty

I found this very interesting...

Thoughts of a Male Sex Worker


Note : There is no spokesperson for International Union of Sex Workers. As a feminist, non-hierarchical organisation, the IUSW wishes to present a diversity of sex worker voices, so a number of IUSW activists speak to the press and to the public on issues relating to the sex industry and adult entertainment. They speak from their own experience and their knowledge of the industry. Unless otherwise stated, articles by IUSW activists represent their view as individuals, not those of the organisation.

Each individual decides for themselves the work they undertake and their degree of self-disclosure: most IUSW activists have experienced direct or indirect slander, libel, misrepresentation and threats as a result of their activism. As a result, we advise activists to record interviews, speaking engagements etc. to prevent misrepresentation, whether purposeful or accidental.

Thierry Schaffauser

My name is Thierry Schaffauser and I have been a sex worker for 7 years. I have started to work on the streets in Paris and I work now in this country advertising on line and I also work in the gay porn industry.

In my life I have always had problems with authority and it has always been difficult for me to accept it. I think one of the reasons why I am a sex worker is for the freedom it provides me and because I couldn't work any longer for someone else. I couldn't hear any more sexists and homophobic jokes from my co-workers and feel exploited and humiliated, like a consenting slave. I did many jobs before doing sex work and so far sex work has been the least exploitative work I have done. In the sex industry you can have employers but it is also easy to work independently and keep control on your work. You can choose when you want to work, not to wake up early at mornings, and have better incomes than in doing other jobs generally available for working class people and minorities.

And I think it is precisely because sex work is an economic strategy for working class women and minorities that it is criminalised. Husbands needing their wives to stay to do the housework and all kind of services. Bosses needing an exploitable labour force. But sex workers tell them all to fuck off!

Sex work is repressed and stigmatised because it is a strategy for women and minorities to be economically independent from a father or from a husband, to flee their country and always find clients and money wherever they migrate. Without sex work I wouldn't certainly have been able to live my own life, to study, to travel and move to London when Sarkozy became the “Furher” of France, to learn a new language, to militate, to write a book, to have time to sleep in mornings, to enjoy myself, to be me.

But even with the best working conditions is sex work still inherently the result of an economic power from one person to another?

Personally I don't feel like my clients have any power on me. I feel quite the opposite but I suppose it depends also on how workers feel and on the way they work. When I have to advise friends who start sex work I always try to give them tips so they can keep control on what they do and avoid bad clients. In all circumstances we must always have the right to say no. I have always been able to refuse a client or to refuse to do something I didn't want because I know there will always be other new clients who want to meet me. That's the reason why I don't think we can compare a client with an employer.

I don't think that the one who pays is necessary the one who dominates. When a patient gives money to his or her doctor for the medical services he or she provides, we don't tell them they are exploiting the doctor. My views are more that a client who pays shows that he is accepting my conditions and that he's ready to respect the contract. A bad client however will often be the one who doesn't like the idea to pay and really wants it for his money. Most men think that it is humiliating to pay and that we should provide them sex for free. Being a client is stigmatised as someone who cant pick up without having to pay and many men are boasting that they don't need to pay to have sex.

The comparison we hear sometimes between sex work and rape and the call to criminalise clients is really shocking for me because if they want to arrest our clients, those who respect the contract, no-one seems to give a shit about the men who rape us, who refuse to pay, and the fact that our reports for rape are not registered by the police. So if it was about protecting us, what do they wait for to arrest men who REALLY rape sex workers ? Criminalisation is not about protecting us as it has never protected a sex worker to be sent to jail as well as our clients. Criminalisation is about preventing us to work and to punish us for disobeying and because some people have an ideological problem with the fact that working class people dare using their sex to earn a better living when it should remain sacralised.

If we refuse to be rescued and refuse their rehabilitation, then they accuse us of complicity with patriarchy, sexual exploitation of children, slavery, trafficking and rape. Yes, all that just because we want our work recognised as a work.

For instance, our union is criticised for allowing in its membership policy everyone who's ready to support sex workers rights.

On this membership issue I may have the same opinion and would prefer a workers only group, however, the fact that they use that to conclude that the union is run by pimps and punters is not only false but it is a way to disqualify our voice.

What I have to say comes from my own mind and no-one else. They can pretend that we are manipulated by pimps to delegitimate our say but they should also know as feminists that this technic is the same old technic used to silence minorities. Women had themselves to suffer from it when they were told that they couldn't obtain the right to vote because they were manipulated by the church and would vote like their husbands.

Each time a sex worker stood up and spoke for herself or himself there has always been thrown suspicion. We don't accuse the “ex sex workers” to be manipulated by the abolitionist business and the rescue industry because we respect their voice even if we believe they are the minority.

We know that the abolitionist system comes from the nineteenth century Victorian ideology. At this time, sex out of marriage was not acceptable for women. Nowadays they don't speak anymore about fallen women, they call sex workers “prostituted women” but does it change much? These Victorian feminists were defending Christian values. Nowadays they still ally themselves with fundamentalist Christians and use their same techniques. As a result, there are ex-sex workers who campaign against sex workers' rights like there are ex-gays who campaign against LGBT rights. But we know that a LGBT person who commits suicide is rather due to the stigma than the sexuality he or she has.

Also I want to ask you: Do you really think that the absence of money makes sex free of exploitation and domination ? What about sex in our relationships when we feel we have to?

What about having sex with our partner to get rid of him, to end an argument, because it's valentine day and he offered the restaurant, because we don't have anywhere else to go and we depend on his incomes, when we are new in this country and don't know other people who can accommodate us, when he says he hasn't come yet and that you have to wait for him to finish.

Does the fact to blame sex work is not an excuse not to look at our own sexualities?

Or is that because we cant accept that sex workers are not these inferior beings and that they can teach us a lot about how to fight against domination in our sexualities.

To conclude, I don't know if in a perfect anarchist society without any kind of power, sex work will still exist. For sure it won't exist in the same way it does in a capitalist and patriarchal system. I like to think that the future sex workers will provide sex and affection to their comrades whatever their gender, sexual orientation, etc. It will not be anymore about male clients who have the economic power to pay but about making the people, everyone, happy.

IUSW – www.iusw.org

 

Oct. 26th, 2009

Beauty

This genuinely fills me with joy...



Tags: , ,

Sep. 25th, 2009

Beauty

Hahaha

I just got sent this by a friend. They know I hate photoshop, but they stole one of my self portraits and did this anyway, just to spite me!

Ssssssh, don't tell them.... but I secretly kind of love it (though I do look a bit like a computer animation vampire, haha)...



Beauty

Autumn brings balance

Today's mood: optimistic. I have had a frankly awful time recently, people I love dying with alarming regularity, being told some exceedingly unpleasant things by my doctor, some of my best friends leaving London... it all sucketh. However, I got a bit sick and tired of feeling so utterly oppressed by all the crap. And thus, changes have been made! The awesome [info]clockworkwasp was the instigator of some of this with her delightful visit of crazy and lots of plotting has been done since. I'm starting to relax again, feel secure and safe and loved and hopeful. I wrote a list of Things That Are Good and you know what? My life is *awesome*! Ridiculously so, in fact. Yes, in the past year, bad things have often outweighed the good, but that doesn't mean that the good hasn't been there.

Some people will never understand the fact that I might not want to lead a conventional life; that I might not want to spend my time being dull and staying in all the time or bitching about my problems to anyone who will listen or go clubbing with my uni friends every week (though  daily "literary pretension" coffee with Charlotte is quite necessary :D)... I prefer to spend a lot of time with my wonderful family and Ben and Treadwellians and Crimson people and lovely old close friends like Angel... Because those things make me happy. Being spontaneous and going for a surprise girlie night out (even though we didn't leave until gone midnight and it resulted in my fake eyelashes gluing my eyes shut this morning) is worth feeling tired the next day, because you are buzzy on all the fun you had. And I had really, really, really, spectacularly good fun. Sometimes all it takes is dinner with someone you love and a damn good night out to make you snap out of an ongoing cycle of panic and stress.

I have said my goodbyes to those I have lost. I can't do anything about my health; just be hopeful. I have fantastic friends around me and those who have headed off, I will be seeing again very soon when they return to London to visit. This equinox has got a lot of sadness and joy all muddled up in it. I also know that some decisions need to be made soon, which I'm not exactly ecstatic about, but I have spent almost the entire last year giving all of myself in order to support friends and family who needed it... I need a bit of me time now I think. An autumn of quiet bookinshness, fabulous people and spontaneous partying is much needed. An autumn of glitter and books and fabulous shoes. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun :D

Sep. 11th, 2009

Beauty

(no subject)

Is anyone else going to the Doreen Valiente Conference this weekend and wants to meet up for a coffee or somesuch? Ben and I will both be there with a few Treadwellians :-D

Lxx

Sep. 7th, 2009

Loss

Stuff and things

I really, really, really need a decent web designer to create a simple, easy to navigate photo website. Anyone have any suggestions? Anyone know anything about smugmug? I keep hearing it is good but am suspicious of the website building capacity....

In other news: am alive, sleeping badly and found out that The Grandmother is much closer to death than I realised when I was asked to spell and grammar check her eulogy the other day. I have taken all frustration at this out via my sewing machine and made two beautiful dresses and a fab "Grease" style circle skirt, which make me happy :) My friend Nat is staying with me until her return to Bath uni and we are having lots of stupid fun whilst I am simultaneously trying to take care of (what feels like) everything in the world!

Well. Maybe not everything. Just an awful lot.

Also: summer is over and it is autumn. This is a good thing :-D

EDIT: Actually, just found out The Grandmother died last night. Sadness. Stupid amounts of sadness :-(

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Beauty

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