Diary #500

Have you ever wondered what the numbers in the diary title refer to?  Unless you’re terribly unobservant you’ve probably realized that each week’s number is the same as the Links column which follows it; that’s because they both refer to the week rather than the number of entries in that category (which for both is somewhat below 500).  In other words, this is the five hundredth week of this blog.  Every day for the last 500 weeks I’ve published a new column, and even though many are now news columns, link collections, or adaptations of Twitter threads, that’s still an awful lot of essays (over 3500 now, altogether).  I’ve never been paid for any of it, nor have I paywalled or intrusively-monetized the site, and I don’t intend to; however, I think it’s time I got at least some compensation for an awful lot of time, effort and brainpower.  That’s why I’ve started gathering my best work into collections; The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I came out last week, and you can buy it on Amazon; if you prefer a signed copy, I just got a box in yesterday and I’ll be adding it to my store today.  I’d appreciate it if those of you who appreciate my writing would both buy it and review it, because that’s how things get marketed on Amazon.  And now that I’ve figured out how to turn preparing these collections into a routine, I should (with any luck) be able to turn them out on a regular basis.  I’m already almost halfway through with the primary edit for Volume II, and Shannon Reeves & I have already planned the next cover; I don’t foresee any difficulty in getting it out in April as planned.  Then I’ll start compiling my next project, Ask Maggie, a two-volume collection of my advice columns, followed by a compilation of all my harlotographies and, if there’s sufficient demand, a third volume of The Essential Maggie McNeill, collecting my best essays from 2016-2019.  With any luck I can start making an appreciable income on books every month; if even one breaks out into general notice, the rest will follow.  And the more income I can be sure of every month, the more energy I can put into writing and speaking.

Read Full Post »

Being Maggie

Lately, I’ve received several requests from escorts, especially mature ones, asking how they can move toward the business model I’ve built, namely eschewing formal advertising altogether and just relying on guys who contact me because of my blogging, Twitter, articles, books, video interviews, podcast appearances, etc.  And I’m always hesitant to even try to answer such questions because, though I often play at being terribly conceited and full of myself, it’s always done with enough of a smile and a wink that most people know it’s a tease (at least, I hope they know).  In reality, it took a very long time for me to accept that I was even attractive, much less a bona fide sex symbol, and I’m still not really comfortable with discussing that status as a factual thing; as a result, I find it difficult to answer the question “How can I market myself as you do?” by stating the true and factual answer: “Be Maggie McNeill”.  No, I’m not being facetious; that really is the truth.  By the time I started escorting full-time at the age of 33, my personality was already pretty firmly established in all of its unconventional, intense, neuroatypical, compulsive, fiery glory, and trying to hide or disguise that personality would’ve been almost as difficult as trying to get a new head.  From the time I was a stripper I’ve never made any effort to “round my shoulders” as my old friend Dr. Helena put it, in other words to soften my edges and cool my fire so as to be less threatening to men.  Some men love my strength and fury, but a larger number are intimidated by them; that’s just something I’ve had to accept as the price of being who I am.  As I’ve explained before, aside from the occasional nude selfie or the like, I’ve never really done anything solely for marketing purposes; astute readers may have noticed that my ads on various escort ad sites are always plagiarized from one another, because I find it much too difficult to find new ways to praise myself.  I didn’t start this blog to market myself as an escort; remember, for the first five years I pretended to be retired!  No, I started it to educate people about sex work and speak about what I believe in, and I started Twitter to promote the blog.  Then the interviews, speaking gigs, books, etc, all followed as natural consequences of that, and eventually I realized there was no point in hiding my identity from potential customers when it was pretty clear that, in our current surveillance state, the “authorities” already knew who I was anyhow.  In other words, I didn’t go looking for fame; it just sort of happened to me, and business (plus the likely attention of evildoers) followed close behind.  Simply put, I can’t possibly tell you or anybody how to get to where I’ve found myself because it wasn’t the result of any kind of brilliant and well-considered plan; it just kinda happened as a result of the choices I made, and those in turn were just outgrowths of who I am.  I realize “Be Maggie McNeill” is useless as career advice to anyone who isn’t already Maggie McNeill, but I’m afraid it’s all I’ve got.

Read Full Post »

Diary #499

Those of you who follow me on Twitter probably noticed that I started tweeting awfully early Saturday morning, and awfully late on Sunday afternoon.  That’s because I flew out on Saturday for an overnight with one of my favorite gentlemen, and was too busy enjoying my visit to tweet until I got to the airport to come home on Sunday.  And it was such a lovely and memorable visit that I managed to stay completely calm on the way back even when it looked like I was going to be pushed off of my flight due to what I believe to have been a mass invasion of conventioneers or some such.  But apparently Hermes is happy with me right now, because I got on both legs of my return trip despite that.  Even better: it looks like I’m going to be seeing a lot more of this particular gent than I have in the past, and that makes me very happy for all the reasons you might expect (and a couple more I won’t mention).  On top of that:  As I mentioned yesterday, The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I is out!  If you want an autographed copy, I’m going to be adding that to my store very soon (likely tomorrow, because I have a Who night with Lorelei tonight).  I’m not going to jinx things by dwelling too long on how well things are going for me right now, but I had to at least share the highlights with y’all, and hope I have plenty more like them this year!

Read Full Post »

The Essential Maggie McNeill

At long last it’s finally here!  I first mentioned my plan to write The Essential Maggie McNeill in my New Years’ Eve column for 2013, before many of the essays which are included in the final version were even written.  At that time I imagined I’d have it done by summer of 2014, but of course I decided to do a book tour during that time instead, then one thing led to another.  By the end of ’14 I had a title but nothing else; after March of ’15 the project sort of fizzled and by the time I mentioned it again over a year later I was already working on The Forms of Things Unknown.  Then it was two years after that (ie, about 18 months ago) before I finally started working on it in earnest, and I mention in the foreword that I wrote it on July 9^th, 2018…at which time I told y’all that it’d probably be available in August.  Unfortunately, I’m not nearly as good with graphics as I am with words, so though the text was quite ready by August, I could not manage to create a cover that worked (though you may recognize the photo in this mention of the project).  Because I’m very competent at most things, I’ve never really learned how to deal with tasks that are difficult, and I’m not proud to say that my usual strategy for coping with such things is to put them off and hope something changes.  A year ago I hit upon the idea of letting someone else do the cover, but didn’t know who; Chester Brown has been busy with a big project of his own, and I don’t want to keep imposing on him anyhow (though I will when it comes time to publish my next fiction collection, Lost Angels).  Finally in November I decided to get Shannon Reeves, the young Canadian artist who did the artwork for The War on Whores; Paul Johnson put me in touch with her and she was able to design and create a lovely cover in a very short time!  Now here’s the good news:  we’ve already got a plan for the cover of volume II, and it’s already formatted and waiting for editing.  So barring some kind of disaster, that one should be ready in April, and Shannon’s already agreed to do covers for two collections of my answers to reader questions which I hope to get out in summer and autumn.  Yeah, I know, I don’t have a great track record on these, but once I get into a groove I’m usually fine.  In the meantime, y’all can inspire me by buying volume I at Amazon; the Kindle edition is here if you prefer that, and autographed copies will also be available on my store by the end of this week!

Read Full Post »

Back Issue #78

Arbitrary social conventions have no more resemblance to real morality than pantomime horses have to thoroughbreds.  –  “Heart of Gold”

• Fascinating to see fetishists convincing themselves their fantasies are real.
• The Maoist cult whose members were at first called “slaves” by the media.
• Vanillas who can’t recognize repressed kink when they see it are hilarious.
• Next they’ll wonder why women working “illegally” increases dramatically.
• “It’s hard to imagine a more predictable abuse of authority,” Maggie said.
• Theresa May using “sex trafficking” as an excuse to destroy civil liberties.
• It’s quite nice to see my ideas quoted positively in the mainstream press.
• As long as these laws exist, all women are vulnerable to cop persecution.
• If a cop rapes you, say he paid you instead. THAT he’ll get in trouble for.
• Why can’t reporters write about murders of whores without lurid bullshit?
• “Feminist” reporter says women are too stupid to manage our own lives.
• Moral panics don’t end until they start disrupting lives of well-connected.
• Are politicians stupider than other people, or does it just seem that way?
• Liz Brown discovers a revolting pattern in US vice cops’ recent behavior.
• Delusional anti-drug nonsense sounds like delusional anti-sex nonsense.
• Kenyan sex work articles can be just as weirdly stupid as Nigerian ones.
• Unlike US media, Canadians willing to call anti-whore rubbish what it is.
• Cracked has a far more realistic view of sex work than “serious” media.
• Femen’s main goal seems to be the generation of irony from hypocrisy.
• The definition of “sexual predator” used here is too broad to be useful.
• Another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida.
• I honestly couldn’t think of what other category I could put this under.
• “Expert sex therapists” have never labelled “sex addiction” a disorder.
• Yet the government still won’t admit that the TSA attracts pedophiles.
• Of all the semi-whores, none are as pompous as licensed masseuses.
• Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
• Eva Keene on the larger implications of the persecution of Backpage.
• “Pizzagate” was a predictable outgrowth of “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• What “legalized and heavily regulated” actually looks like in practice.
• New payment processor, new rhetoric, same old anti-whore bullshit.
• Ashley Madison still won’t admit to the known fact that it uses bots.
• Fetishist admits her “information” is bullshit, yet teaches it anyway.
• Sex workers need to keep fighting charges from “sting” operations.
• “Pizzagate” lunacy sprang directly from “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• Because pigs still don’t have enough excuses to cage people yet.
• We can’t find any “victims”, yet the “problem” is “overwhelming”.
• More than two years later, Mexico City’s whores are still fighting.
• One of the more predictable uses of the “sex trafficking” excuse.
• Jesse Walker on the long American tradition of rescue fantasies.
• Another example of the “limited hours for massage parlors” fad.
• Quite possibly the stupidest prohibitionist argument of the year.
• It’s always great to see good December 17^th essays from allies.
• Indian feminists’ enlightenment puts American ones to shame.
• Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
• Criminalization exposes whores to danger from real criminals.
• Prohibition turns every individual’s body into a “crime scene”.
• Liz Brown is as suspicious of the Sherri Papini case as I am.
• A call for decriminalization in Australia’s Northern Territory.
• Well, if Wonder Woman can teach breast self-examination…
• Reflecting on three years of dramatic changes in my life.
• We haven’t seen claims this ridiculous in quite a while.
• How sex workers brought civilization to the Wild West.
• You mean pictures don’t have magic anti-love powers?
• “Concerned parents” is a euphemism for “busybodies”.
• How do escorts command more respect from clients?
• A disproportionate number of actual pimps are cops.
• The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived.
• Presenting the tenth member of my Hall of Shame.
• The first in-blog hinting about my upcoming move.
• For those of you who still insist I’m an alarmist.
• And this is different from the US…how, exactly?
• How can I get a provider to give me a referral?
• Yet another reminder that my time is not free.
• A judge agrees that the law says what it says.
• A rare victory for victims of legalized robbery.
• America’s love-hate relationship with whores.
• Preparing for the holidays, a visit and a tour.
• Proofreading The Forms of Things Unknown.
• Another round of persecution of TRB users.
• A sneak peak at my story “Trust Exercise”.
• On the futility of attempts to block porn.
• I love it when they feed on each other.
• This is what a moral panic looks like.
• The judge, the feds and the stripper.
• Called it.  Five and a half years ago.
• The rescue industry is big business.
• No torches, but a mob nonetheless.
• The five victims of Jack the Ripper.
• 70% of sex workers have children.
• The “hooker with a heart of gold”.
• Essentially, a mobile tippelzone.
• Rapist cops of November, 2016.
• Me, on the Politics of Sex Work.
• Do as they say, not as they do.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• When will journalists grow up?
• Dare we hope this is a trend?
• My January 2017 tour dates.
• The panic industry at work.
• On sex workers’ families.
• Ever more hilarious.
• On pricing.
• Hi.

Read Full Post »

Diary #494

I’ve been busy with Christmas preparations lately, not the least of which is preparing as many columns as I can in advance so there’s no pressure on me to do so during the holidays.  Normally I have about ten columns “in the pipe” at any given time, though it often drops a bit lower when I travel; right now I’m at 18, and hope to keep it there until I head to Sunset on Monday.  I plan to stay there until January 2^nd, and to be fairly lazy while there except for cooking and helping Grace to build the bookshelves for my living room.  It will be nice to have some time alone with her; we haven’t really had much of that over the past five years.  But Jae left for a vacation with a friend in Australia yesterday, and Chekhov is leaving to visit family on the 27^th, so Grace and I will have the days leading up to the New Year for the bookcase project, talking, and getting stoned together.  That may not sound very exciting to you, but as I wrote a few weeks ago, I have learned to appreciate the quiet times in my life.  And time spent with a good and beloved friend has a special joy all its own.

Read Full Post »

Diary #491

Unlike last week, which only seemed quiet, this week was genuinely quiet.  And you know what?  It was hard to be upset about that, and I didn’t really try.  Some writing, a couple of nice sessions with regulars, getting my hair and nails done, doing a fun podcast that I’ll tell you about when it drops, planning Thanksgiving, doing a little shopping and hiring someone to help me finish a long-delayed project; that about sums up the productive portions of the week.  Otherwise, I actually managed to do some light reading (!!!) and have made some new additions to my wishlist (if you’re considering getting me a Christmas present), and I did a bit of philosophizing while stoned that might make it into a future story or philosophy column.  Tomorrow I’ll be driving out to Sunset in the evening, and then the feast on Thursday and tree-trimming on Friday; with any luck, I won’t have anything more exciting than that to tell you about in next week’s diary.  Except for reminding you of my toy drive, which is always exciting.

Read Full Post »