sex

In a fit of partial insanity I landed on the concept of MSR and so far (24 years) it's sticking. I am pleased with what it has become and feel reasonably confident of it's future direction. The idea of sexual and personal themes blended with music and dark abstract expressionist art in this way is appealing to me. The decision to put all my inner thoughts and emotional grief and experiences into music was a natural one for me. This decision led me down a strange and interesting path of typical and not-so-typical s/m experiences and I met a lot of interesting and colorful people.

I have fond memories of walking one chilly night in Manhattan with an MSR fan I just met and telling him about my new body piercings. I asked "do you wanna see 'em?" He sheepishly nodded his head yes wondering if I would actually do this on a sidewalk in the meat packing district. Having just come from the annual Dressing For Pleasure get-together I was dressed in a lovely black latex outfit and I'll tell you the mood there was so open and free you stop having any inhibitions very quickly. I stopped and pulled up the latex and showed him. Ah, I have to smile, those were the days.

Sex. The word conjures up so many images - images that are different for everyone. In it's finest form, it can be so delicious, so primal, so intense. The word is thrown around a lot, but it transcends a single definition. The internet changed the face of porn and our attitudes towards it. I was in on that scene in the mid 1990s and I saw first-hand how, suddenly, porn exploded onto computers and, suddenly, it wasn't quite so forbidden or underground.

Maybe it was more exciting when it seemed more forbidden.

Even in San Francisco, where I lived for 8 years, there was an atmosphere of edgy sexual tension. I tried to forget how narrow minded the rest of the country was. Growing up in the midwest (Indiana and Iowa) I knew all too well how stifled the attitudes were with regard to sex or anything unusual or provocative, not necessarily sexual. When you live in San Francisco, at some point eventually, you tend to start thinking that the entire United States of America is just like San Francisco - open minded anything goes.

If you don't believe sex (or should I say a complete lack of regard for decency?) has hit the mainstream bigtime in this soon to be ended first decade of the 21st century, just look at the popularity of the "I Fucked Matt Damon" video by Sarah Silverman and the response "I Fucked Ben Affleck" by Jimmy Kimmel. Both were shown on national TV (with the word "fuck" bleeped out of course) and got millions of hits on YouTube. It's acceptable now to talk about who you are fucking and how you are fucking them. No secrets. No taboo. Oh how our society has changed. Ok, I admit those videos made me laugh.

The problem now with sex is you can't use the word "sex" in emails anymore. If I write you a sweet little email saying "I want to have sex with you" - it will go in your spam trash junk box and you'll sadly never see it. Boo hoo. So I'll have to write "I want to have s*x with you" and you'll know what s*x is, right? So sex has become s*x.

All kidding aside, I had my own arguments with myself. I always have arguments with myself. I wrestled with the idea of not continuing to do MSR, or drastically changing it's focus away from sexual themes and imagery. Yes, I've wrestled with myself on this subject. I'm here to tell you s*x won.