Tragedy

This is reprinted with permission from the Passional Myspace account:

The Plight of Jade
Sunday night, a friend, Jade Vixen, and her boyfriend came home from dinner, where an angry stalker shot her boyfriend. That same individual, a fetish client not unknown to the Dominant women of New York and Philly, then kidnapped her at gunpoint drove her around in his car and molested her. Only by using her charm and wits was she able to convince him to let her escape with her life after four hours of a car ride through hell.

But none of these incidents compare to the rape she is now experiencing in the news media, especially here in Philadelphia.

I first learned of the incident on Monday afternoon, before anyone knew that killer David Kreig had finally taken his own life. It was already a sad day as I learned of the death of a friend just minutes before learning about what happened to Jade. I didn't want to make the trauma public out of respect to Jade. What could I (or anyone) do?

On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a small non-inflammatory piece about the incident, which was a huge relief to me. Having a violent stalker is every woman's nightmare, and the mainstream world is often unkind to women who work in the adult industry. So I was prematurely relieved that the news had kindly overlooked the sensational aspects of Jade's life and loves. But now the episode has gone public at high speed.

The Daily News didn't even break the story until after the New York Post plastered Jade on the cover yesterday. Today's story manipulated her tale into a B-movie plot line where femme fatale "Jade Vixen" plays a villainess who destroyed the lives of two (innocent?) men. Masturbatory embellishments regarding "sissy-slut training" and descriptions of photos featuring her (in a jumpsuit) "squatting with her legs spread," left an especially foul taste in my mouth. Killer David Kreig was described as having "seemed like a nice guy" after several paragraphs detailing Jade's sexual proclivities.

As if the print copy weren't inflammatory enough, Philly News ran online slide show of copyrighted photographs from photographers who are clearly not on the Daily News payroll alongside anonymous racist, sexist and personal comments (including the Jade's cell phone number) in what seems to me an almost criminal encouragement of future harassment and attacks. Thankfully, some of the most offensive comments, including her now-disconnected phone number have been deleted, but the damage is done.

To know Jade is to love her. She is an intelligent, generous and kind person, which is very likely what sent David Kraig into a fit of obsession. Her only crime was having treating this disturbed man with compassion after repeated episodes of harassment.

The crimes of the news are more numerous and more severe.

Jade has donated her modeling services and dozens of hours of her time to several independent artists, designers, retailers and charitable causes yet the Daily News didn't see fit to balance this information against salacious and potentially disturbing details about her sexuality found on the internet.

Right now, it unfortunately seems as though any online fantasy post about Jade is going to become part of a public feeding frenzy of quasi-pornographic publishing masquerading as news. I can't imagine its going to be very much fun for a woman who has just lost a lover at the hands of a lunatic.

Please keep Jade in your thoughts and prayers.

LIve from Cupid's Arcade

When I started this blog I had some notion of daily posts. Then I got busy and that went out the door.
But every now and then I do get out and explore the greater world of kinkdom. Such as today, where I ended up at Cupid's Arcade, just due west of Kutztown, PA.
You might think a place called Cupid's would, at very least, be cute. Guess again, Porky. This place is a scumatorium of the most refined sort. In my travels, I haven't witnessed such a hole-in-the-wall since visiting the worst places in the Midwest, twenty years ago. Holy Mother Of Harlots, this place has to be experienced.
To start off with, Cupid's is located in a rural area. It is near Allentown and Kutztown University. I would gather it's one of the few places rural kinksters can visit to pick up giant silicone dongs. Probably because it is so remote from anything, the locals don't mind it being there. The establishment did have that long-term look. Here's a clue for finding it: it's located right next to a big red barn and I am not making this up.
What it resembles on the outside is a two story cinder block building. In fact, it is a two story cinder block building which just happens to sell porn. No windows I could see and, although the main entrance was to the side, the parking was mostly in the back, safely away from the traffic on the main road next to it. There appeared to be a small residence further to the back. It looked to have been remodeled at some point in the past with mobile homes. But it didn't appear to be in use from what I could tell. My suspicion is the rear home/trailer park once upon a time had other uses connected with the bookstore.
Once inside I was confronted with the famous peg-board and purple shelving of porn stores of the past. Most of the adult toy supplies were the generic "Doc Johnson" type. A central island was manned by a nice clerk, but it also held a TV tuned to the SciFi channel. The bookshelves no longer contained books but DVD's. Cupid's seems to have been around a long time and I bet once they even sold books there.
Ah, but to the action: one row of video arcades in a dark corridor on the bottom floor. There were some people watching the videos, but most, in spite of a sign warning against loitering, were just hanging out in between the booths. Some of the patrons were even chatting to each other, something I don't think I've ever seen in an ABS.
But the real destination of your intrepid explorer was the movie rooms. This I had heard about over the years and was anxious to see what they resembled. $12.00 purchased my admission to this area.
First was the downstairs "movie room": one dark room with many benches facing a dim TV screen showing straight porn. There was only one movie-goer there and he looked bored. Up stairs took me to another movie room with identical benches facing a TV screen, this time showing gay porn. Oh, I get it. Two movie rooms, one for the straights, another for the gays.
Not much action there either, but I was there around noon and it was a weekday. There did seem to be some dark alcoves which were probably put to use whenever possible and rolls of paper towels on the wall.
The effect was a cross between a church and a rest stop.
It didn't seem too dirty and no one hassled me. Neither movie room was my idea of an erotic encounter space, but I suppose you take what you can get for $12.00.
All-in-all, Cupid's is a throw-back to the days of the erotic book store bunkers which used to ring major cities with blue laws. The sort of place where you would read about a city councilman arrested for boffing some minister in public. It doesn't appear to have ever been a legitimate theatre, which is usually the case for porn stores in near-by Philly. I'm sure it can get pretty intense in those movie rooms on Saturday night, but I don't think it would be the place to take a date.