Listen in on my conversation with long time Kinky Salon peeps Dan and Nicole, talking about negotiating open relationships, and being in love with a whole community Read more at http://kinkysalon.libsyn.com/podcast-2-dan-and-nicole-in-portland#9xLBxl8KL9cTb4O7.99

In this inaugural episode of the Kinky Salon podcast I talk to Dixie De La Tour from Bawdy Storytelling

Here's a fabulous act from a recent cabaret in San Francisco, featuring Jonny Rocks!

I remember the moment I decided to shave my pubic hair. I was at an afterparty in London with a dozen or so friends. They were fetish models and photographers. I was finally hanging with the scene makers and I wanted desperately to belong. We had been out to a fetish club and stayed up all night high on drugs. As the orange sun of early morning peeked through the curtains, we still wore our fetish gear from the night before. Corsets and high heels, latex and leather. The discomfort of sweat and constriction forgotten. Cigarette butts discarded in half empty cocktails. We talked about how special we were. A few of us stood in the center of the room dancing and laughing, waiting our turn for a line of coke. We flirted and dared each other to outrageousness. Diana, with curls of shiny black hair bouncing around bright red lips reached her hand between my legs and I adjusted my hips so she could explore more easily. We laughed as she casually felt up the outside of my PVC shorts. I remember the look on her face, wide eyed and nonchalantly mocking as she tugged on a tuft of my pubic hair. “Jesus Christ, Polly, you’ve got a such a hairy pussy.” I suddenly felt awkward. My confidence seeped away and I felt my face redden. “I don’t like to shave,” I retorted, “stubble is nasty.” “Check this out you guys, Polly’s pussy is soooo hairy.” I don’t have a particularly hairy body. I’m fair and my hair is fine. I’ve never shaved my legs. My pussy hair is light with a reddish tinge. It doesn’t grow past the necessary area. I was 22 years old and had never thought of shaving. Diana tugged on the hair again and I pulled away. “It’s so long! It’s, like, the longest pussy hair I’ve seen in years.” Everyone at the party laughed and I pretended like it didn’t bother me. After the party I went home and considered my options. I didn’t want to shave my pubic hair off entirely like the other girls in the fetish scene, leaving them bald as an 8 year old. I didn’t like the way that looked or felt. But perhaps I could meet them half way. If I just shaved underneath then my pubic hair would be accepted. I lay back in the bath and picked up my razor, holding it in front of my face contemplatively. I wanted to pretend this was my decision, that I was a grown up, that I had learned something new about how to be sexy, and that I liked the idea of shaving. As I dragged the razor across my labia I convinced myself I was in control. Five minutes later my pussy was pink and hairless, and just a little nicked, with a triangle of strawberry blonde starting just above it. For the next couple of decades my hair stayed the same. I trimmed the sides and a little from the top to stop it from poking out from my underwear, and I shaved myself bald underneath. I first started questioning my relationship to my pubic hair when I decided to take a break from having sex nearly two decades later. At first I continued my grooming, even though nobody would see it. But then the questions began. Why am I doing this? Who am I doing this for? Is this for me? Or for my sexual partners? Or is something else going on here? I would allow you to grow back for a while, but then hurriedly shave it off again with a pang of shame. Then one day I thought to myself, “why do we have pubic hair anyway?” I went online and googled that very question and I discovered a most amazing fact. Not only does the layer of pubic hair help to prevent skin to skin infections like herpes and HPV, but shaving and waxing create tiny micro-tears in the skin which make infection way more likely. WTF? Really? Pubic hair protects us from STDs, and yet the sluttier we are the more likely we are to shave it off, making our delicate genitals vulnerable and exposed. This seems downright illogical. Looking back it’s pretty clear that I allowed my vanity—my desire to belong—to dictate my relationship with my pubic hair. I followed the fashion, and I didn’t question it or look too closely at my motives. I allowed myself to think it was a personal preference. I admit, I do like I do like the feeling of slippery smooth freshly shaved labia, but I haven’t questioned why. Thinking about it now I realize that it’s pretty much all I’ve known. My entire slutty adult sex life I’ve had a shaved pussy, so of course that’s sexy to me. So I decided to grow back my bush. It’s not super long and unkempt, but neatly trimmed and perfectly coiffed. I’m still getting used to it, but I like the way it feels. There’s a whole new sensation to nearly touching my pussy that I’ve never experienced before. The brush of a hand tickling the pubes on my labia feels good. I’m happy to be in a place where I can finally overcome the social pressure of shaving, and make a decision based on what I want. It’s my body, my pubes, my health, my pleasure, and my choice.

[Originally posted on my blog at www.pollysuperstar.com Nov 15th 2014] Dear Ass, Congratulations on your recent media attention. It’s a telling time in history when a woman’s ass can be more famous than the woman. With your undeniably impressive proportions and your ceaseless media exposure you have achieved a status in our culture previously only available to people. As a sexual object, oiled and buffed to perfection, your voice is now more powerful than any other ass in history. I hope you will use your fame to bring attention to the plight of your fellow female body parts whose voices are so often silenced. Ankles, for example, are desperate for this kind of sexual objectification. For more than a century they have been all but ignored. Victorian culture did not neglect the ankle as we do now, and understood its elegance and erotic potential. Eyeballs have also suffered, with their only attention being the occasional oculolinctus. Although the women themselves might complain about this constant dehumanization and sexualization of their body parts, you and I both know that the body parts themselves crave the attention. While some may poo poo your talents, I admire your ability to balance a champagne glass, as the famous ass of freakshow star Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman, AKA the Hottentot Venus, did before you. It’s a noble lineage of ass glass balancing. What factors have arisen in our culture to allow your ascent into the annals of history? I believe it’s the repression of sexuality that has made way for your meteoric rise. If everyone had access to ass without guilt and shame, then we would have no need to fetishize and deify an ass, even one as magnificent as you. You would be relegated to the simple status of just another body part of just another woman, no more notable than a graceful arm or a strong calf. Congratulations again on your unprecedented media frenzy. Never in the history of ass has an ass made such a huge impression. Polly

[This was originally posted to my blog at www.pollysuperstar.com on Oct 6th 2013] After Miley Cyrus’ recent spate of twerking, Sinéad O’Connor wrote her an open letter, you can read it here: http://www.sineadoconnor.com/2013/10/open-letter-to-miley-cyrus/ Then Amanda Palmer wrote an open letter to Sinéad http://amandapalmer.net/blog/20131003/ Then Ann Magnuson wrote an open letter to open letters http://pleasekillme.com/ann-magnusons-open-letter-to-an-open-letter/ … which is awesome. I thought I would weigh in on the debate with an open letter to Sex Dear Sex I think it’s time you grew up. You send such mixed messages. First it’s sledgehammer licking and twerking from snarky disney child stars. Then it’s “powerful women keep their clothes on” messages from bald 80s pop stars. I was a slutty little teen minx with bad boundaries, and a simultaneous self image of superiority and self loathing. It was the first time I felt powerful, when I saw men staring at me with lusty intentions. I’m glad there were no cameras around to see me, to judge me with a million peering eyes as I flailed around in my self-learning. I’m glad there was no internet to make commentary. In my opinion, if you never got it wrong, then you never played hard enough. Oh Sex, I know it’s confusing… you want to wear your whore shoes and your garter belt and your red lipstick, but does it mean you’re succumbing to pressure?Fulfilling a fantasy? Or are you fetishizing the image of the trainwreck, trying to find your own truth within it. You’re told to be sexy. Billboards with teen porn selling ‘apparel’, all panties and pouts, glower down at you on street corners. You’re told to aspire to an image of impossible perfection. Then you’re told you’re doing it wrong. Then, when you feel you’re getting it right, I don’t blame you for wanting to be the one saying “you’re doing it wrong.” Sex, I think you’re having an identity crisis. You’re stuck with the idea that you’re shameful and wrong, while you’re standing on a podium in latex underwear shaking your ass and showing us your tongue. I think you’re crass and rude, and gorgeous and real. As you flail around in your mid-sexual-revolution confusion, with all these conflicting pressures, wondering what your role is, I don’t blame you for acting out, whether it’s with ‘mother knows best’ patronizing or flipping off the world with a giant finger. We’ll figure this out together. One things for sure, you’re not just for making babies anymore. Your role in culture is bigger than that, and we’ve been kidding ourselves for centuries trying to shut you behind the bedroom door. I tell you what, let’s have a party. Let’s not judge, let’s just celebrate you, and see what happens next. I think your future looks amazing. Love Polly xxx

I interviewed Margaret Cho, or rather she interviewed me. We talked about my book and Kinky Salon

We sent a request out for people to record themselves at home reading out the manifesto, then the lovely Calaveras edited them together into this video

This is the trailer for my book, Polly:Sex Culture Revolutionary