Wednesday, March 13, 2002
The possibility of an attack on BME being raised today because of bme/HARD made me stop and think about why I run bme/HARD, and why I started it in the first place. Obviously bme/HARD generates revenue for the site, but it serves a much more important philosophical role.
Almost every adult-entertainment site on the Internet has one commonality: photos of people being bribed into pretending to enjoy sex (yeah, it's true, pornstars get paid to do what they do). bme/HARD on the other hand, at least to me, is a celebration of joy. People ask me sometimes, “What sort of pictures do you want for bme/HARD?”
My response is always the same:
“Send in photos of whatever you enjoy doing. bme/HARD isn't (just) about producing jack-off material. It's about documenting healthy and fun sexual games and celebrating the fact that there are people out there who live healthy, happy, and unrestricted erotic lives.”
I thought about that for a while, and I realized — as far out and deviant as some of the sex play on bme/HARD is, it is all positive, and if society lived its lives by the rules of bme/HARD (concept: consensual and universal joy), the world would be a much better — and probably a much more peaceful place. Why shouldn't people be able to share photos of themselves fucking? Sex is fun, right? It's what we're built for. It's literally our primary purpose in life, and it's a lot better than war. (What's the cliche? Make love, not war?)
So celebrate it.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy seeing other people enjoy themselves.
I'll post a couple teaser images from the over-the-top hot gallery, courtesy of our especially beautiful friends Dark Delilah, Basia, and Boris. I know I enjoyed their gallery, I hope you will too. There are of course many MANY more in bme/HARD (here's the direct link to their gallery if you have a membership):
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
I don't know if this is “fake funmail” but it sure is funny:
From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Apology
Hey, sorry about the 'angry old lady' email I sent you yesterday. Completely my fault for getting so worked up over nothing. I'm sure you had every intention of replying to my email, why wouldn't you? The ideas were brilliant. I know that we all get behind sometimes, hell even Indigo called to let me know that what I was waiting for is finally on it's way. Being out in the bush most of the time, I don't have alot of contact with people so, my patience wears thin sometimes. Combine that with a love of CC on my days off and I get down-right mean.
New Brunswick may be alot of things, but a social place it ain't!
Anyway, I just wanted, soberly, to say I'm sorry and throw some more ideas at you...how about: 'Pierced, Just Like Jesus' or 'I Like Your Holes, Want Something To Stick In 'Em?'. I think the second one is more of a button than a t-shirt. You can have those ones for free, as a peace offering. By the way, I noticed that the managers name changed on the site. Is that because the guy who was running the shop was an ass or did the pansy get married and take his boyfriends name? Just kidding.
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
1. Donations
Anyone who has donated money to BME via PayPal in the last six months or so should now have in their email box a password which will cover the next full year of IAM access. Please note though that because of PayPal's terms of service, I really can't accept payments via them for memberships. This is just a thank you to those that donated without expecting a return, not a current payment option.
2. Submissions
I have added the following to the image submissions FAQ:
But I only want IAM access. What can I do?
If you only want IAM access, and don't need access to BME's password protected section, include that in your email (ie. say "PLEASE SEND ME ONLY AN IAM PASSWORD"), and you'll get a membership that lasts about three times as long (but will only access IAM).
I hope that strikes a fair compromise. The whole point of these changes is not for me to turn a profit — it's just to start breaking even… I've reached a point in my life where I have to start worrying about the future — I'm building a house now, and hopefully one day a family, and that family ultimately has to take financial priority.
All this scarytalk needs to be balanced out with a funmail. First though I just wanted to say that even though March 17th is the predicted day for this switch, it will be a staggered change. Most likely, the “BME membership required” condition will only apply during the peak hours at first (since that's what really forced the decision).
So, if you don't have a membership, and you haven't had time to get one, it just means you'll have to use IAM in the morning instead of the evening. I wish I could just pay all your bills myself, but the simple fact is that I can not, and if I am not paying them, and you are not paying them, then no one is paying for them.
Anyway, the funmail. This came to the shop yesterday afternoon:
From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Shirts
What about a shirt that sez 'Tattooz Saved My Life'? or mebbe 'My P.A. saved my marriage'?
Think about it. And don't think you can steal those, I wanna be paid if you use 'em!!
OK, I at least thought the second one was kind of funny… But before we could reply, we got this second message this afternoon:
From: "Beer Schitz"
Subject: Pansy
I see you don't even respond to emails. Nice. I'm just trying to help out and give you some ideas and you can't even be bothered to respond. That's great customer service! In fact, you remind me of another great Canadian company...maybe you've heard of Indigo? Yeah, they're just as good as you at getting back to people with ideas. Maybe you should have a conference with that Heather Reismann woman. You could have a big customer service party together. If you want more ideas, I've got them, I'd be glad to help you with them, for a price. Don't doubt me, if you don't want them someone else will, then you'll be out of business.
I'm just trying to keep it Canadian...
Suffice it to say, we've decided against working with this guy! Oh, and if this is “Canadian” behavior, colour me Yankee please! I mean colOR!!!!
First of all, is it just me or was IAM running super slow last night? Looking at the server, I couldn't see any extreme load on the machine — the CPU never maxxed out — so I'm not sure where the problem was… If it happens again today I'll look into it more seriously.
I'll do some more fiddling with the custom layout tools today… But I'll briefly mention a few news stories that I thought had merit. The first to catch my eye was Bush's new “NO NEUTRALITY” stance. Why shouldn't countries have the right to be neutral? So now Iceland (because they're neutral, not because Bush mentioned them) is the evil enemy, because they're neutral? It's one thing to lump in countries like Iraq, but it starts getting ridiculous when you claim that neutral = evil as well.
I'll just quickly blip a few stories here as I desperately need to get to work:
- Washington has love affair with terror – A brief history of foreign deaths caused by the US. I had no idea that the US bombing killed nearly 3 million Koreans… Note: this is not a “US had it coming” type article, just a death-toll count.
- The Worst Day of the War – Contrasts differing responses to American troop deaths (“worst day of war”) to Afghan civilian deaths (“president's approval soars”).
- War 'playing into al-Qaeda's hands' – How the war has helped al-Qaeda and similar groups far more than hurting or even threatening them.
Well… If that doesn't suck enough for you, and you want some more down-to-earth evil that's easier to understand and easier to beat, just click here instead.
