Dates and Venues
By Tonya Jone Miller | May 16, 2013
Just a note to say I now have venue assignments and show schedules for all my upcoming Threads festival performances except Vancouver, BC. If you are anywhere nearby, I hope you’ll come out to see the show!
Topics: Acting, My Life, Threads | No Comments »
Words to Live By
By Tonya Jone Miller | May 3, 2013
My friend, Nadia, posted this on Facebook today. They are not my words, but I feel as though I could have written them. She gave me permission to share…
“I was a music major for five years, three spent planning to go on and get my masters and PhD in performance, to eventually teach my instrument at university.
I was miserable.
I couldn’t understand how something you were supposed to do simply for the love of it could make me want to cry and hide. That I would have done anything to avoid going onstage, and sadly accepted it as the price for playing my instrument. I tried to understand what music was, thinking about the ideals of emotions, communications and art… And what that could or should mean to an audience, or a performer. I felt like I was missing very fundamental pieces of a simple puzzle.
I tried harder to find the pieces; tried harder to do it “right”. Eventually I got so I could dope myself into a state of self hypnosis and play the prescripted notes with precision and accuracy; but I felt nothing as I did, and none of the joy that I had expected to feel when I had finally performed “well”. I decided that the notes I was playing was not music, and was not art… And in a way was an abomination.
I went to an Amanda Palmer concert a week ago; I was reminded again that music should be a way of bringing people together, of sharing moments and thoughts better left half veiled. And I was reminded, to stop acting like art is hard… To stop thinking that art isn’t pouring from your soul, breaking from your chest to be released and propelled into the world. That we are created from the expression of love and passion, and there is little in our lives that does not revolve around both.
Get out of your skin. Dance. Sing. Forget that you have a body; remember that you are alive.”
Topics: My Life | No Comments »
I Can’t Do It
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 28, 2013
Ok, some posts back I was talking about how I watched For a Good Time, Call… and was going to write a review of it for Tits and Sass. Well, I suck, but I have to renege. I can’t do it. I just…Can’t. See, it was such a goddamn awful movie, I think I managed to block it out of my brain. I’ve actually sat down no less than four times to write my review, looked at my notes, and had no idea what to write. Finally today I realized that if I wanted to make any sense, I was going to have to watch the movie again. And I simply cannot bring myself to do it. I refuse. The damn flick doesn’t deserve another hour and a half of my life. So, I’m sorry if you were looking forward to my take on it, but I have to disappoint you. Trust me, it is no loss. You didn’t want to see the movie anyway, and nothing I said would have changed that. Jesus that movie rankled me more than I realized.
Topics: My Life | No Comments »
Pulling Strings
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 25, 2013
I hid her away. Buried her deep in my gut, covered with layers of muscle and fat and fear. Every day, I felt her roiling and screaming, battering me from the inside, desperately trying to break through the tightly-knit sinews protecting me from her. I began to hate her.
Why won’t you just go away? I would stare at my belly, dig my fingers in and imagine ripping her from my flesh. If I were pregnant, it could be done. But the deeper I pressed my searching hands into the softness, the more wily and evasive she became until finally I believed I had succeeded in folding her in upon herself completely. And so I was alone. Me, in this body.
My lovers tried. They accepted that I had driven her away, that I needed to. They let me know, gently, that she was welcome to return if I ever wanted to invite her back. They learned to love me, divorced from her. They took care of me, and let me take care of them. They tried not to be too concerned, but they knew: I was not whole.
Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Sometimes I missed her, but more often I was relieved to be free of the emotion that was so inherent in her. The god-damn need. It can be dangerous and self-destructive to go on a bender because you just don’t want to feel anything anymore; it’s so much worse when you realize you’re already numb. When no amount of poking or prodding can elicit a response. When the thing that once sustained you has devoured you from the inside out until there is nothing left. When you are hollow.
Yet if I was empty, she had to be gone. Right? It was safe. I took a breath. I relaxed my stomach muscles and let my tummy hang defeated. My carefully knit pattern kept its shape. I had survived. But somewhere, in the tiny, tucked-away corner of an errant cell, fiber, or membrane, so had she. And now…
Tug. Tug tug tug. She is pulling on a loose string somewhere. She has woken, starving, and she intends to feast. Every slap, every spank, every welt, every bruise, every jolt to my cunt, every loaded glance, every naughty text…Nourishment. Yes, she is a hungry girl, and I will no longer deny her.
Submission. Me, to her. Submission. Mine.
Topics: Kink, My Life | 1 Comment »
We did it!
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 24, 2013
Thank you thank you thank you! Hotline made their Kickstarter goal!
Topics: My Life | 1 Comment »
Want to see me in a movie?
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 19, 2013
Well, it’s already a done deal! Myself and a few of the other Bay City Blues phone sex goddesses were recently interviewed for Hotline, a documentary about telephone hotlines. The filmmakers are really awesome people, putting their hearts, souls, and savings into this labor of love. Creating Threads was by far the most important-difficult-empowering thing I’ve ever done, so I really empathize with them and respect the amount of work they are putting into this movie. The stories they are telling are important. They speak to profound human needs and how difficult it is to connect with each other in our increasingly automated world.
They have a Kickstarter campaign going and really need that money to begin post-production. As of this writing, there are five days left to raise $7,000. Please, if I’ve ever put a smile on your face or made your day better, please consider making a donation, however small. One single dollar will make a difference. Thank you.
Topics: My Life | No Comments »
Oh Boston…
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 15, 2013
…My heart breaks for you.
Topics: My Life | No Comments »
Fun with wigs!
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 10, 2013
I’ve been very into wigs lately, so I thought I’d share a snapshot. 
Also, part two of my podcast interview with Dr. Dick’s Sex Advice is available now. Hope you enjoy!
T
Topics: My Life | No Comments »
Financial Domination Becomes Me
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 9, 2013
Financial Domination, also known as FinDom, but which I like to call FiDo, is one of those fetishes that used to induce a groan from me whenever I ran across someone who professed interest in it. It isn’t that I thought it was wrong or disgusting or distasteful in any way, more that up until very recently (more on that later) I believed it doesn’t really exist. Perhaps more accurately, I always thought of it as an impossible fetish.
Impossible fetishes are those fantasies or fetishes you cannot fulfill or satisfy. Not to be confused with those you should not actually engage in (like incest or pedophilia or rape) for ethical reasons. As abhorrent as they are, human beings are capable of committing those acts. If your fantasy is to fuck a horned succubus who has the magical power to make your cock any size she wants? Sorry, that’s not going to happen outside of the realm of fantasy.
To my mind, financial domination phone sex is a slightly different kind of Catch-22. A guy wants to spend all his money on a woman until she bankrupts him? Well, he can do that, but then what? Almost by virtue of definition, if a financial submissive does manage to get his ultimate fantasy, the party is over for him at that point. Even if the memories last the years it takes him to repair his credit, what does he do in the interim? But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I would say 99% of my experiences with self-described financial domination seekers go like this…A guy emails or messages me to tell me he’s interested in financial domination. Stop right there. You want a fetish where you give me money and get nothing in return except maybe some verbal abuse, right? You just failed at your own fetish. See, you can pay to talk to me. I’m a phone sex operator; you know my time is money. And instead of purchasing my services, you essentially just demanded my time for free. I don’t get paid to message or email and you know this because you didn’t have to shell out anything to contact me that way. Do you begin to see the problem here?
Ok fine. It takes me three seconds to respond “then call me and we’ll talk about it.” At this point, if someone continues to try to chat me up online or via email, I block and ignore. If you tell me you want X but expect me to do Y, I’m going to assume you’re full of shit from A to Z. It has been my overwhelming experience that guys who approach me online claiming to want FiDo are really just dangling a carrot to see how much attention they can get from me for free. It turns into reverse financial domination, and I don’t consent.
I get callers on dispatch all the time asking if I can take their money and hang up on them. I tell them I’m happy to process their card and send them to a girl who will do that, but they ALWAYS push. “So I won’t get anything? I just pay you and I’m pathetic right?” At this point, they’ve crossed a line. They’re now engaging me, as the dispatcher not the operator, in their fetish without my consent. If I try to push for their card number, they sidestep “but if I give it to you, I don’t get anything, right?” instead of just giving me the credit card information. I have tried being sweet and patient, I have tried being a bitch, but never have I managed to get one of those guy’s cards processed so an operator can even hang up on them.
I suppose it’s their way of getting their financial domination fetish satisfied without actually having to pay anything, but again I say this constitutes a fetish FAIL. I sell fantasy for money on my own terms. Consent is implicit when I press a button to accept a call, and a big factor in that consent is financial consideration. Engaging me sexually or trying to manipulate me into saying whatever it is that gets them off while I’m attempting to dispatch the call is done without my consent. It is, if not sexual assault, sexual assumption of right to include me against my will. Sorry, guys, not okay.
Now let’s say a FiDo guy actually makes a call right off the bat. Ok, good sign. The problem harks back to what I mentioned before, that guys want to pay tribute and get nothing in return. When was the last time you actively ignored someone without giving them any indication that you were spending any amount of time or effort doing so? It’s extremely hard, because how do you know it was successful? When do you know it’s over? I’m asking on both sides here. Can you see where the confusion might arise? How do you know you’ve gotten what you paid for when you’ve paid for getting nothing? It’s funny to consider but at the same time a serious problem.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I recently ran across my first real financial domination phone sex caller, who for discretion’s sake I will refer to as J. I’ve had very generous regulars over the years, but none who called himself a FinDom guy or asked for financial domination in specific terms. I consider them patrons of my art, my life, my theatrical endeavors, and I am immensely grateful for them.
However, J is different. Our first contact was a paid call on which he laid it out for me- his desires, his financial situation and credit limit, his history with the fetish. It became very clear that this was not J’s first time at the FiDo rodeo, and I was intrigued. See, I don’t go for the quick, easy money; I work hard to build loyal, lasting clientele. How on earth does one sustain financial domination over the long term?
J and I have had numerous discussions about this and come to a place of understanding and agreement. It requires patience on the part of the caller- he can have some of what he wants every so often, but he can’t have everything right now. The same goes for the operator- she can’t get too greedy too quickly. The tricky part is negotiating how to handle conflict and credit limits. For example, the operator says, “buy me this $500 pair of shoes!” Caller says, “if I do that, I won’t be able to pay my rent this month.” At this point, some people would think the “Domme” should demand the shoes or threaten to cut all ties with the FiDo caller. So what, she gets the shoes (or doesn’t) but loses a client? What if he buys her the shoes and it’s the last straw that pushes him into bankruptcy? The Domme gets her shoes but will be missing out on a lot of potential tribute that could have been worth thousands of dollars had she not forced him under financially but rather allowed him to tread water.
I won’t go into very much detail about our conversations or current arrangement, as that is our business. But suffice it to say I now know without question that there are real FinDom subs out there, few and far between as they may be. Also, I finally understand the appeal: it gives their lives purpose. It was this epiphany that removed any last vestiges of guilt I had at receiving financial tribute.
I love life. I create art. I work hard to make peoples’ lives better and this world a kinder place. I give back to my community. I mentor people and help them find their path or continue their journey. I live comfortably, but that’s because I value love and experiences over material possessions and bank accounts. And like so many of us nowadays, I could use some help. I have bills to pay and groceries to buy and plane tickets to pay for so that I can go perform and share my story with the world. I will find a way as I always do, but I am not above asking the Universe for help. And I am certainly willing to supply purpose to the lives of any financial slaves out there seeking a mistress worthy of their tribute. If you choose to become one of my patrons, you can rest assured that your funds are being put toward fostering more creativity, love, and acceptance in this world. What better purpose is there? *smiles*
So to that end, I will be adding a Financial Domination page to the Aural Courtesan section of this site. I will not be promoting myself or my FinDom services beyond that, I simply wish to have a place to refer future inquirers. A big thank you to J for helping me come to terms with this tricky fetish and how naturally it suits me.
Love,
Tonya
866-SEXY-832
Topics: Kink, My Life, Phone Sex, Sex Work | No Comments »
Sex & Creativity Workshop
By Tonya Jone Miller | April 3, 2013
Want to learn how to talk dirty and roleplay like a pro? I’m co-teaching a Sex and Creativity workshop with Eleanor O’Brien on May 4th! Eleanor is the person responsible for introducing me to the fringe festival circuit, and I credit her as a big reason my play, Threads, exists. She is also the artistic director of Dance Naked Productions and the creatrix of the Inviting Desire show series. We’ve been talking about doing a workshop like this for some time now, and I’m overjoyed that we finally have a date. For more info or to purchase tickets, click here.
Topics: Acting, Kink, My Life, Sex Work, Writing | No Comments »