Photo by Perry Gallagher

Photo by Perry Gallagher.

One of the latest trends in Weight Loss is drinking hot Lemon Water first thing in the morning.  What are the actual benefits?

Benefits of drinking Hot water:

If a person drinks hot water it helps to break down food faster than drinking cold or warm water. It reduces the risk of constipation by supporting regular bowel movements.  Does it detoxify? When water is hot enough to raise a person’s body temperature, it can cause sweating.  Sweating expels toxins and can help clean the pores.  Drinking hot water temporarily improves circulation.  Hot water is a vasodilator, meaning it expands the blood vessels, improving circulation. This can help muscles relax and reduce pain.  Heat applied to the sinuses can alleviate pressure caused by colds and nasal allergies. Steam also helps unclog the sinuses.  Drinking hot water may help mucous move more quickly. This means that drinking hot water may encourage coughing and nose-blowing to be more productive.  A soothing cup of hot water may help people manage stress and anxiety.

An older study found that consumption of hot liquids, such as tea and coffee, could lower stress and reduce feelings of anxiety.  The study argues that some of the effects are due to caffeine, but that the warmth also played a role in the improved mood of participants.

Research has long supported the idea that drinking more water can help a person lose weight. This may partially be because drinking water increases feelings of fullness. Water also helps the body absorb nutrients, and it flushes out waste.

A study published in 2003 found that switching from drinking cold water to hot water could increase weight loss. Researchers found that drinking 500 ml  (a little over 2 cups) of water before a meal increased metabolism by 30 percent.

Raising water temperature to 98.6 degrees accounted for 40 percent of the increase in metabolism. This metabolic step-up lasted for 30-40 minutes, following water consumption.

Are there additional benefits to drinking Hot Lemon Water?

Lemon water contains compounds that may protect your cells and improve metabolic health. However, human studies are needed.  The studies done are on rats.  Lemon water contains beneficial substances, and is a source of plant compounds called flavonoids.  Many have antioxidant properties that appear to help protect your cells from damage.  Flavonoids from citrus fruits are often linked with benefits for blood circulation, insulin sensitivity and other aspects of metabolic health.  Lemon flavonoids also have the potential to reduce oxidative stress and damage, at least in rats.

Studies show that lemon water can help treat kidney stones. It appears most effective alongside conventional therapy, but may also be a useful alternative treatment.  Kidney stones are solid mineral formations that collect in the kidneys. The most common type is made of a substance called calcium oxalate, and is typically treated with a compound called citrate.  Increasing the amount of citrate in your urine is thought to prevent calcium from binding with other compounds and forming stones.  In short, citrate restores the urine’s ability to prevent kidney stone formation.  Lemon water contains high amounts of citrate, and numerous human studies have found it can successfully help treat kidney stones.

Depending on the amount of lemon juice you add to your hot water, you are adding small amounts of Vitamin C, Potassium, Magnesium, Iron, and Calcium.  You should beware though that too much lemon juice has been proven bad for our teeth.  Lemon juice is acidic. This means when we drink it, it can cause enamel erosion on our teeth. In fact, lemon juice has a pH level of 2-3 which means it is causing harm to our teeth because liquids with a pH level under four have been proven to negatively impact our dental health.  Therefore, some is excellent for you and too much can be really bad over time.

And that is the total science proven benefit of hot lemon water versus hot water.  Everything else is myth or unproven in scientific studies.

When you contact me, I usually send a clipboard message asking:

“Please tell me more about your interests?  Fetish?  Kink? BDSM?  Sensual exploration?”

What am I asking you? 

What is a Fetishist?  It is a person turned on by something that isn’t genitals, that is: Paraphilias.  Paraphilia is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals..  It could be feet or someone wearing pantyhose.  A Fetishist is not necessarily a submissive or bottom, they can be dominant, a Top. 

What is a Kinkster?   Short answer, some who wants to get weird.  lol.  This is a person who enjoys a wide variety of activities across the board, is flexible and doesn’t necessarily adhere to Top or bottom or Dom or submissive, this person doesn’t adhere to one mind set.  “Let’s play with anal toys and pee on each other.”

Please see my “Fetishes and Kinks” List in the Information Category.

Sensual exploration is the vanilla blue plate special, with sensory play or a perhaps a bit of restraint added.  Massage for skin arousal, perhaps brushing the skin, having a person smell the leather flogger than softly drawing it over the skin, using a blindfold and or ear plugs to heighten the touch sense.  Again, this is not play that necessarily adheres to a Top or bottom.

What is BDSM?  

B is for Bondage: The restriction of a person’s bodily movements for erotic reasons using fastenings of various types or textures.

D is for Dominant:  The one in charge, or the top who oversees and controls. The responsible One. A Dominant should be well versed in the areas of play to be explored, seek to be educated in those areas of a playlist not familiar with before engaging in play, be knowledgeable of health risks and dangers and take appropriate safety precautions.

S is for submissive or slave AND/OR Sadist.

What is a submissive?  One who gives freely of themselves for the pleasures of another. A subordinate with negotiated limits. A bottom, someone who follows and there are pre-agreed boundaries.

What is a slave?  A totally subordinate person who needs or wants total direction in all aspects of their life. To be owned, to serve, without question, and who questions nothing they are told.  A slave will do things to please their Domme or Dom even if they don’t enjoy said activities, without negotiated limits taking undesired activities off the menu.  Activities are within Safe, Sane, Consensual parameters.  They are trusting their Owner to be Responsible regarding their ownership and have signed off any further negotiations.

What is a Sadist?  A person who derives pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from inflicting pain or humiliation on others.

M is for Masochist:  a person who derives sexual gratification from their own pain or humiliation and/or enjoys an activity that appears to be painful or tedious.

A person who enjoys BDSM activities does not necessarily enjoy everything.  It is more like going to a buffet and picking the offers you like.  You may like extreme bondage only or bondage with S&M play.

When we have an appointment, arrange to spend some time together, it is always more productive to have a plan as to what we will be doing, so I am prepared and you are satisfied.

Dry Brush 

Hot shower 

Yoga.

So hard day after day to fight off depression and keep my routine. 

Keep doing the work.   We will survive. 

Looking forward to playing.   

And now a long walk with Ollie,  my dog.

Cheers.  

Why do Self Care?  Because Self Care is Self Love.

If you aren’t someone you love, who are you?

The greatest journey I have taken is the path to becoming a person I wanted to be best friends with,

Someone who promoted and supported healthy choices.  Someone who is a beacon of light and goodness.

Someone who accepted who people are and who they are not, and who they are is perfect.  A person that thinks of constructive ways to build my friends up and support them.  

The point of having time, love and energy invested in me is to be able to give it away in positive ways.  Being centered, filled with energy and love is to be filled with light and hope.

For me, the greatest magic we have is hope, especially in these dark times.  We must be warriors engaged in the great war against despair and darkness.

Goodness has her sexy side also.  Confidence and believing in yourself, having your word be golden is pretty superior magic and very sexy.

I love my life.  Thank you for being here with me to play.

Childs Pose

Standing Forward Bend

Downward Dog

Three Legged Dog

(switch legs)

Lunge

(switch legs)

Crescent Lunge

Warrior i

Warrior ii

Reverse Warrior

Revolved Triangle Pose

Plank

Upward Dog

Cat & Cow

Even before the COVID-19 maintaining Lung health has been part of my self care routines.  Breathing air pollution, second hand smoke (yes, even walking down the street – there are times when I will walk into a cigar/cigarette or marijuana air bomb) isn’t good for your lungs.

I don’t smoke.  If you do, it isn’t good for lung health.  Period.  This includes vaping.

I love steaming my lungs in the morning.  I have one of those personal Vick’s steamers I bought at the drug store.  If I feel a cold coming on, I add a Vicks Vapor ring, but for general use, I just steam with water.  It clears my sinus’s,  my whole head feels better.  This isn’t a do one time thing, for best results, you steam at least a couple times a week.  There isn’t long term results unless you keep steaming regularly.

As a submissive, I bend over a lot of laps for spankings, or for impact play on my bottom.  When I do, if my head is clogged with mucus it all drains forward and I feel pressure inside my face.  Uncomfortable at best, running nose and headache at worse.  With steaming, I do not have these conditions.

Regular exercise is good for your body and mental health.  I am walker.  I have a dog.  Even our short walks for 20 minutes at a good pace will increase my heart rate, make me breathe deeper, increase oxygen to my lungs, improves circulation, makes me glisten, all the things that assist your lungs in working more efficiently.

I love Green Tea. Hot.  Even when I am traveling and staying in a hotel room, nice ones include a little machine and Green Tea.  Green Tea reduces inflammation in your lungs.  It is refreshing to just take a few minutes, breathe deeply, center myself, drink my tea.   Next time you feel overwhelmed I suggest you try it.

There are foods I eat to reduce inflammation.   I add a handful of dried cherries to my oatmeal in the morning.  I love beans and lentils – soups for lunch with these is a bonus.  I cook with extra virgin Olive oil.  So good for your body.  Olive oil contains oleic acid and oleocanthal, two nutrients that can fight inflammation and has Vitamin K and E.

To obtain some specific antioxidants, try to include the following in your diet:

Vitamin A: Salmon, butter, Cheddar Cheese, hard boiled egg, trout, mango, cantaloupe, grapefruit, sweet potato, kale

Vitamin C:  acerola cherries, guavas, thyme, parsley, kale, Brussels spouts

Vitamin E: sunflower seeds, almonds, pine nuts, rainbow trout, salmon

Beta-carotene: carrots, sweet potatoes, podded peas, spinach, summer squash, and apricots

Lycopene: guava, tomatoes, cherries, raspberries, grapefruit, papaya, mango and watermelon

Lutein: Kale, green peas, summer squash, pumpkin, Brussels sprouts, carrots, Pistachios

Selenium: Brazil nuts, fish, oatmeal, bananas, hard boiled eggs, yogurt

These are foods I eat all the time.

Lung health is an important part of Self Care. 

Live well, Be happy.

I love my life.

Ann

This article is written by Tony McGuinn for AskSubmissann.

For centuries now, people have been crediting the Marquis de Sade for the “invention” of BDSM.  In fact, he gets so much credit that sadism was named after him… a legacy that the state of Sade was probably not entirely happy about, especially since the Marquis’s real name was “Donatien Alphonse François.”

But, more importantly, the Marquis didn’t invent sadism.  He simply wrote prolifically about it.  It was his fetish, and his brand was a very specific type of violent, non-consensual sadism.  Elsewhere in the world, however, consensual BDSM practices flourished.  And nowhere did sexual appetites have a broader freedom than in the wide, open plains of the American frontier.

Prostitution and erotic services were legal in the United States until 1910-1915, when states began outlawing them as part of the “temperance” movement, which also went after alcohol.

Prostitution and erotic services were legal in the United States until 1910-1915, when states began outlawing them as part of the “temperance” movement, which also went after alcohol.

The writings of the Marquis de Sade were penned in the 1780s but not widely distributed or spoken of.  Indeed, the term “sadism” wasn’t coined for another century, by German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing.  Meanwhile, like-minded individuals were writing their own books on the matter: in the late 1800s, John Camden Hotten republished “Fashionable Lectures: Composed and Delivered with Birch Discipline,” a series of stories from the 1750s including “Female Flagellants,” “Lady Bumtickler’s Revels,” and “Madame Birchini’s Dance.”  In 1748, John Cleland published “Memoirs of the Woman of Pleasure,” the story of Fanny Hill that also featured themes of bondage, discipline, sadomasochism, and power exchange.

But on the American frontier, these high-minded writings from across the pond were rare, if not impossible, to come across.  Cowboys were typically uneducated and, even if they were literate, toting books around on horseback wasn’t practical.  For the men of the frontier, life was nomadic… at least until the Madams showed up.

The first true towns of the Wild West owe their creation to the women who saw a business opportunity.  Saloons and brothels sprang up to capitalize on the appetites of men.  Work camps with tents evolved into the first true towns, with women providing more than just entertainment, but also laundry services, education, and discipline.

What’s more, these brothels contributed heavily to the local economies, not merely through the exchange of money, but by paying for business licenses and fees to operate their businesses legally.  According to Wikipedia, prostitution was a $6.3 million business in 1858, more than both the shipping the brewing industries combined.

So what’s all this have to do with BDSM?

In a lucrative economy with many competing women, the women who offered more exotic services got more attention.  Saloon “parlor games” often involved spanking or paddling.  (Whether the men were losing on purpose to get a free paddling or not is up to debate.)  Brothels offered a variety of girls who themselves offered a variety of “services,” not all of them sexual, but certainly all of them erotic.

To this end, many women in the old west carried clutches, fans, fly swatters, or hand-brooms.  In some vintage boudoir photos, hand-brooms are prominently featured on the walls, a winking suggestion of what erotic services the girls might offer.  And it wasn’t only the working girls who employed fans, canes, whips, or brooms; Fannie Porter, whose “boarding house” in San Antonio was the favorite of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was rumored to have chased policemen with brooms after they tried to charge her girls with vagrancy.

Some saloons had “jail cells” or other cages where their girls could entertain.  The famous Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone, AZ had 14 “cribs” (or beds), made to look like cages, suspended from its ceiling, a decoration that would later give rise to the go-go dancing cages of the 1970s.  If the Bird Cage sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because this “theater” was among the favorite brothels of wild west heroes such as Doc Holliday and “Diamond” Jim Brady.  (At least, it was before Doc Holliday and his paramour “Big Nose Kate” opened up their own saloon, The Grand Hotel, in 1880, also in Tombstone.)

Many brothels (billed as “theaters,” “hotels,” or “saloons”) had suggestive names.  In addition to the “Bird Cage,” there was the famous “Stockade” of Salt Lake City, UT, built in 1908.  A self-enclosed red light district whose construction was overseen by a local Madam, the Stockade was run by Dora Topham (known to her clients as “Belle London”), and included its own jail cell that was more for humiliation than for actual punishment.

In calling cards, license pictures, and glam shots of the wild west, women hinted at their services in titillating ways.  Some, for example, show women shooting pool: a distinctly un-lady-like activity, but one that would allow the woman to be featured holding a birch cane.  Others include women holding lassos or whips, despite not necessarily being cowgirls.  The purpose of ropes and whips was left up the imagination.

The overwhelming majority of brothels were headed by women who themselves had once been prostitutes and had “graduated” to the title of “Madam.”  Now businesswomen, they were generally fiercely protective of their girls, and offered a key role in their societies, paying for education, healthcare, churchs, and other community services.  One, Julia Bulette, donated so much money to the town of Virginia City, NV, that she was made an honorary firefighter, and in one of the last portraits ever taken of her, is shown posing with a fireman’s helmet.  Another, Pearl de Vere, offered regular medical exams and treatment for her girls in addition to letting them keep 40% of their pay.  (A visit to Pearl’s brothel, “The Old Homestead,” costs $250 a night… $6500 in today’s money.)

Madams might not have been “working girls” themselves but they were not afraid to act as Dommes, carrying with them riding crops, whips, clutches filled with rocks, and ivory-handled pistols, all items they could use to protect themselves, their businesses, their girls, and their clients.  (And they weren’t afraid to use them, either.  “Big Nose” Kate once broke Doc Holiday out of jail.)

Brothels like the House of Mirrors, the Bird Cage, the Stockade, The Grand Theatre, and Fannie Porter’s boarding house were places that offered exotic settings for exotic services, includingsilk sheets, electric chandeliers, and champagne, all rarities in the unsettled west.  There were so many brothels that they became a staple of most old-west towns, and some towns began publishing guidebooks to their red-light districts.  San Antonio and New Orleans both had “Blue Book” guides which one could purchase for 25¢ that billed themselves as “Directories of the Sporting District… an accurate guide to those who are seeking a good time.”

One of the best-remembered advertisements was that of Diddlin’ Dora’s, a “dance hall” in Deadwood, SD, which said it offered “The Three D’s: Dinin’, Drinkin’, and Dancin’!”  According to the Madam, Dora Dufran, it was “a place where you can bring your mother.”  This motto was meant ironically; Diddlin’ Dora’s, as the name implied, was a place for exotic pleasures, and one patron was famously quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t want my mother to know I had ever been there.”  Dora Dufran was a friend of the famous Calamity Jane, who herself was a working girl and a co-Madam in Deadwood.

The women of the West built their own culture, and most had likely never heard of the Marquis de Sade.  Exotic and erotic services offered in the Wild West were a mixture of their own invention, and what their customers wanted from them.  BDSM is prevalent across many cultures, not just 18th century Europe.  On the American frontier, it prospered for over a century, a home-grown practice that created a new class of feminine self-made millionaires, and helped build and sustain entire towns.

(A note on conversion rates: $1 in 1880 was worth about $25 today.)

FURTHER READING AND SOURCES:

Print:

• Birchell, Donna Blake. “Wicked Women of New Mexico.”  The History Press; First Edition, First Printing edition (March 4, 2014).
• Enss, Chris. “Wicked Women: Notorious, Mischievous, and Wayward Ladies from the Old West.”  TwoDot; First edition (February 20, 2015)
• Rutter, Michael. “Boudoirs to Brothels: The Intimate World of Wild West Women.”  Farcounty Press (October 10, 2014).
• Rutter, Michael. “Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West.”  Farcountry Press (September 1, 2005).
• Seagraves, Anne. “Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West.”  Wesanne Publications; First Edition edition (June 1, 2003).

On the Web:

• Wikipedia Links to early writings on BDSM:
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Lectures
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill
• True West Magazine.
  • “Soiled Doves” by Jan Mackell. https://truewestmagazine.com/soiled-doves-good-girls-gone-bad/
  • “Queen of the Soiled Doves” by Jana Bommersbach https://truewestmagazine.com/queen-of-the-soiled-doves/
• Miss Cellnia’s “6 Wild Women of the Wild West” on Mental Floss. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/51726/6-wild-women-wild-west
• Harvey, Ian. “Fannie Porter – The Most Iconic ‘Madame’ of the Old West.”  The Vintage News.  (Nov 15, 2016.)  Available online at: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/11/15/fannie-porter-the-most-iconic-madame-of-the-old-west/
• Legends of America.
  • The Madams: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/madames/
  • The “Painted Ladies:” https://www.legendsofamerica.com/sd-deadwoodpaintedladies/
  • Fannie Porter: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/tx-fannieporter/
• Tamar Altebarmakian’s “The 12 Most Notorious Prostitutes and Madams of the World West” on Ranker. https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-old-west-madams/tamar-altebarmakian

Photo Credits:

• Barns, Sarah. “Cracking the Whip: Fascinating photographs show prostitutes who rule men in the 19th century Wild West… and went on to become millionaire and national heroes.”  The Sun, UK.  (June 15, 2017).  Available at:  https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/3805970/fascinating-photographs-show-prostitutes-who-ruled-men-in-the-19th-century-wild-west-and-went-on-to-become-millionaires-and-national-heroes/
• Fyfe, Johnny. “Wild West Women Circa 1800-1900.”  The Johnny Fyfe Portfolio, available at: https://johnfyfe.org/portfolio_page/wild-west-women-circa-1800-1890/

• White, Debbie. “Sin City: Fascinating photos show the brothels of the Wild West and the hard-as-nails women who worked there.”  The Sun, UK.  (May 23, 2019).  Available at: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9129922/photos-brothels-wild-west-hard-women-who-worked-there/