A City Center hot spot

The Vdara hotel at City Center Las Vegas

THE UPSHOT
By Brett Michael Dykes
Wed Sep 29, 12:00 pm ET

Swanky new Vegas hotel’s ‘death ray’ proves inconvenient for some guests

Las Vegas: And here you thought bedbugs were the biggest source of anxiety for hotel guests.

Yes, guests at Vdara hotel in Las Vegas now have something else to worry about: being burned alive by the glare of the building's "death ray."

What the heck's a "death ray," you ask? Well, first off, it's not as deadly as it sounds, since no one has actually died from it -- at least not yet. But according to the U.K. Daily Mail, the powerful beams of Nevada sunlight reflecting off the glass hotel onto sections of the hotel's swimming pool area have burned some guests and have melted plastic bags.

The building's concave design creates a sort of magnifying-glass effect. The hotel's designers reportedly anticipated that ill-situated humans might experience some discomfort courtesy of the building's blinding glare, so they placed a film over the glass panes of its many windows. Obviously that didn't quite do the trick. So for now the hotel is placing larger umbrellas in the pool area while designers try to come up with another remedy.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the hotel's employees coined the term "death ray" to describe the intense reflection. Reports of the glare have also enhanced the hotel's public profile, though almost certainly not in the way its owners would like; Yahoo! searches for Vdara have spiked by nearly 19,000 percent in the past 24 hours.

It turns out that Vdara isn't the only building out there creating intense heat and glare for hapless passersby. Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International, which owns Vdara, told the Review-Journal that in Las Vegas, the AdventureDome at Circus Circus and the Mandalay Bay produce "hot spots" that some guests have actually sought out, believing the spots will aid tanning regimens. In Los Angeles, the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall produced such a harsh glare that it heated nearby homes, forcing residents to blast their air conditioners high above their customary capacities in order for the residents to keep cool.

Bill Pintas, a Chicago attorney, told the Daily Mail that he experienced the harsh glare of the death ray firsthand during a recent Vdara stay. Pintas reported that as he lounged out by the pool, his head suffered a sensation he likened to a "chemical burn." He added, "Within 30 seconds, the back of my legs were burning."

In another interview, Pintas said: "I was effectively being cooked." Thankfully, he returned home alive. Still, his skin was burned and his hair was singed -- disproving the old saying that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Personal comment: The Vdara hotel is in the new 76 acre City Center that opened in December of 2009. There are always design problems to work out as any new project becomes operational.

Inflatable toy accidents and incest

Bulb pump for inserted inflatable dildo

Dildo puncture embolism: I’ve written about the dangers of using inflatable dildos before, but the devices are still available and there are still accidents. This incident was an avoidable tragedy. A 16 y/o was playing with her mom’s sex toys while her parents were away for the weekend. When they returned home they found her in her room wearing her own gray latex encasement masturbation suit from our BDSM boutique – the upmarket model with nipple vacuum cups - and corset that she was so proud of. They had given it to her for her 16th birthday as an age of consent present. She was also wearing her mom’s SGE150 gasmask with a canister attached so if she had called out her cries would have been muffled under the mask. She was still breathing but unresponsive. She had inserted then inflated one of her mom’s old latex Rubber Ram dildos and it burst at the tip. From the look of the ruined dildo her mom had apparently used a petroleum based lube, like Vaseline, on it because at the tip what was left of the rubber was hard and cracked and the pieces had jagged edges. The ME said when the dildo burst the hardened tip shattered and the pieces of hard brittle rubber shredded the tip of her cervix and the compressed air was forced into her uterus where several air bubbles entered her bloodstream. She was still bleeding from her uterus when the EMTs rushed her to the ER where she flat-lined. The doctors think she was unconscious from the bursting of the tip and bleeding out when one of the air bubbles reached her brain and stopped all brain activity. Her parents kept her on a ventilator for several days then shut it off and she stopped breathing a few minutes later.

I tell my escort candidates and the students I teach at St Lucy’s not to use inflatable toys in their vaginas as a puncture can lead to very serious injury or death. But if they must then high quality silicone inflatables are safer that latex ones. And oily lubes should not be used as they deteriorate latex and some silicones rapidly. If a woman must use an inflatable toy she should wear a gas guard to protect herself in case of an ‘uncontrolled puncture’ better known as a blowout. Only one of the toy manufacturers mentions the possibility of an ‘uncontrolled puncture’. That’s like calling a plane crash an ‘uncontrolled descent’.

Penis gags in gasmasks: We had another somewhat similar case a few weeks back where a gay bottom was tied to a bed in his latex encasement suit while wearing a gasmask that had been adapted to include a penis gag operated by a bulb pump that hung like a goiter from the front of the mask along with a three liter rebreather bag attached to the side. It was the bottom’s mask and he was new to encounters with this Dom who wasn’t familiar with how far the gag could be safely inflated. Not only did he over inflate so that it completely blocked the bottom’s throat but the gag burst sending bits of latex and latex dust from inside the gag into the Submissives lungs. Even with the gag deflated the debris from the burst gag had clogged his lungs so completely that he couldn’t inhale and suffocated in his mask before the Dom could unlock the releases on the head harness to get it off.

Pelvic training and incest: We have a 6th form girl at St Lucy’s (she will be 18 early next year.) who transferred in from an elite girl’s school in South Carolina. She said she transferred to St Lucy’s to take my Advanced Sexual Techniques (AST) course and I think that is partially true. She has been paired – by having compatible pelvic anatomy and mutual likes/dislikes- with a 25 y/o UNLV student in the psychology PhD program who is also a full-time escort trainee. He is registered at UNLV and for escort training under a different name, but we found that he is her biological brother. We check for that sort of thing. With both men and women in the entertainment world performing under stage or professional names it is not all that unusual to find siblings working together using different names. But as sexual partners it can get complicated. It’s already obvious to her teachers that she almost certainly relocated schools with the intent of having him as her stallion of choice for AST lab exercises. And we matched them up w/o any overt lobbying on her part.

I don’t plan to have him reassigned to another AST student as they do make an amazingly handsome couple radiating sexual tension and their pelvic anatomies are perfect for each other. However, I did let her know that I knew she and her stallion were brother and sister. She was shocked and then so relieved when she found I was on her side and approved of what she had been able to do, though all she really did was keep quiet when we assigned her brother as her sexual partner. I told her that I expected her to keep her grades up and to be conscientious with her birth control. She agreed and that day I went with her when she had a GyneFix implanted (our clinic keeps a few slots open for immediate GyneFix implantations) so she should be quite safe from pregnancy and be able to let her brother shoot his wad as deep as he can plant it confident that she is virtually impregnable.

Incest and me: I’m not totally in favor of incest. But, I think it can have a meaningful place in some families. God knows, I tried hard enough, when I became of age in NY, to get my father to overcome his grief at my mother’s death by screwing me because he said I was so like her physically. I thought by fucking his brains out I could give him something to look forward too rather than staring into the bottom of an empty single malt bottle most days. I was wrong! Sigh! As beautiful as I was in my teens and early 20s he wouldn’t touch me! So, assuming mutual consent, I’m rather in favor of incest if close family members want to escape from loneliness or take out their frustrations by going at one another during intense sexual encounters. Children from such a relationship is an entirely different thing and totally out of the question because of passing on genetic abnormalities. But then that’s what Mifeprex or a menstrual extraction is for if a girl has a contraceptive failure.

Las Vegas and water

Bathtub ring on Lake Mead cliffs

The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER
September 27, 2010

Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning

LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Nev. — A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River.

Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands.

For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system — irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the Sonoran Desert, and lawns and golf courses from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — could drop below a crucial demarcation line of 1,075 feet.

If it does, that will set in motion a temporary distribution plan approved in 2007 by the seven states with claims to the river and by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and water deliveries to Arizona and Nevada would be reduced.

This could mean more dry lawns, shorter showers and fallow fields in those states, although conservation efforts might help them adjust to the cutbacks. California, which has first call on the Colorado River flows in the lower basin, would not be affected.

But the operating plan also lays out a proposal to prevent Lake Mead from dropping below the trigger point. It allows water managers to send 40 percent more water than usual downstream to Lake Mead from Lake Powell in Utah, the river’s other big reservoir, which now contains about 50 percent more water than Lake Mead.

In that case, the shortage declaration would be avoided and Lake Mead’s levels restored to 1,100 feet or so.

Lake Powell, fed by rain and snowmelt that create the Colorado and tributaries, has risen more than 60 feet from a 2004 low because the upper basin states, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah, do not use their full allocations. The upper basin provides a minimum annual flow of 8.23 million acre feet to Arizona, Nevada and California. (An acre-foot of water is generally considered the amount two families of four use annually.)

In its August report the Bureau of Reclamation said the extra replenishment from Lake Powell was the likeliest outcome. Nonetheless, said Terry Fulp, the bureau’s deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Region, it is the first time ever that the bureau has judged a critical shortage to be remotely possible in the near future.

“We’re approaching the magical line that would trigger shortage,” Mr. Fulp said. “We have the lowest 11-year average in the 100-year-plus recorded history of flows on the basin.”

The reservoir is now less than 15 inches above the all-time low of 1,083.2 feet set in 1956.

But back then, while the demand from California farmland was similar, if not greater, the population was far smaller. Perhaps 9.5 million people in the three states in the lower Colorado River basin depended on the supply in the late 1950s; today more than 28 million people do.

The impact of the declining water level is visible in the alkaline bathtub rings on the reservoir’s walls and the warning lights for mariners high on its rocky outcroppings. National Park Service employees have repeatedly moved marinas, chasing the receding waterline.

Adding to water managers’ unease, scientists predict that prolonged droughts will be more frequent in decades to come as the Southwest’s climate warms. As Lake Mead’s level drops, Hoover Dam’s capacity to generate electricity, which, like the Colorado River water, is sent around the Southwest, diminishes with it. If Lake Mead levels fall to 1,050 feet, it may be impossible to use the dam’s turbines, and the flow of electricity could cease.

The fretting that dominates today’s discussions about the river contrasts with the old-style optimism about the Colorado’s plenitude that has usually prevailed since Hoover Dam — then called Boulder Dam — was completed 75 years ago, impounding the water from Lake Mead.

The worries have provoked action: cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas have undertaken extensive conservation programs. Between 2000 and 2009, Phoenix’s average per-capita daily household use has dropped almost 20 percent; Las Vegas’s has dropped 21.3 percent.

Nonetheless, “if the river flow continues downward and we can’t build back up supply, Las Vegas is in big trouble,” Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said in an interview.

While Las Vegas is one of the Colorado River’s smaller clients — it consumes 2 percent of the river’s allocated deliveries— the city relies on Lake Mead for 90 percent of its water supply. From 2002 to 2009, the metropolitan area’s population mushroomed by nearly 40 percent, to 1.9 million from 1.37 million.

In response to the population boom and the drought, which began in 1999, the authority began an aggressive effort to encourage water conservation in 2002.

Now it is expanding its options: it is tunneling under the bottom of Lake Mead to install a third intake valve that could continue operating until lake levels dropped below 1,000 feet.

Saddle Island, the construction staging site on the reservoir, looks like an abstract painting, its dusty russet ground covered with interlacing segments of the 2,500 concrete rings that will make up the three-mile-long pipe.

Ms. Mulroy has also pushed aggressively for pipelines to carry distant groundwater to the Las Vegas area; most contentious is a planned 285-mile pipeline that would cross the state diagonally and take groundwater from the Snake Valley, on the Nevada-Utah border, to Las Vegas.

The authority has also spent about $147 million on a program to encourage homeowners and businesses to eliminate their lawns in favor of the rock, grass and cactus landscaping known as xeriscaping. More than 70 percent of household water usage is attributed to outdoor use, Ms. Mulroy said.

Residents can now water their yards only three days a week, before 11 a.m. and after 7 p.m., and the restrictions are to tighten this winter.

Dolores Cormier, 82, who lives on Monterrey Avenue on the southern side of Las Vegas, reconfigured her front and side lawns, installing a rocky cover and drip irrigation. Under a water authority program known as Water Smart Landscapes (colloquially, Cash for Grass), she has received $2,689 in utility subsidies that will offset the $5,600 or so she said the xeriscaping cost her.

She is pleased with the new look but said her average monthly water bill of $45 or so has yet to decline, perhaps because she still tends grass in her small backyard. “I need some lawn,” she confessed.

If the 1,075 level is broken at Lake Mead next year, more drastic conservation measures will be needed, officials warn.

“We have a very finite resource and demand which increases and enlarges every day,” said John A. Zebre, a Wyoming lawyer and the president of the Colorado River Water Users Association.

“The problem is always going to be there,” he said. “Everything is driven by that problem.”

Personal Comment: When I bought my home several years ago I removed the lawns and replaced them with desert plants and rocks. And when I put in ‘The Pit’, my 65 ft deep enclosed pool, I had purifiers installed so the water is recycled and only the water that evaporates or that is removed from the pool on peoples swimsuits and diving equipment needs replacing. It’s all powered by electricity generated by the solar collector fields on the acres of land behind the house so I think I’m doing my part. But I’m only one homeowner and the declining water level in Lake Mead is worrying.

Pointe shoe quiz 09-27-2010

What maker’s shoes is this dancer wearing?

World Contraception Day 2010

September 26, 2010 is World Contraception Day

Be responsible

Latex encasement STI protection

Total latex encasement vaginal and anal entry points

Latex catsuit protects against STIs: A woman wearing a form fitting encasement suit is said to be wearing a catsuit. A man in a form fitting encasement suit is said to be wearing a Gimp suit. Encasement suits are used in BDSM to objectify the wearer, or ‘gimp’, and reduce him or her to the status of a sexual toy, rather than a sexual partner. That sort of encasement fetish can appeal to wearer’s of both sexes. A frequent reader, Mark, gave me a great idea during a lovely chat the other day. He showed me pics of a HW Design Latex (an Austrian Company) catsuit in black latex with gloves, hood and booties that had molded vaginal, anal and oral inlays (molded penis form sheathes) that insert into the wearer’s body cavities for totally encased sexual penetration. Suits with this sort of body cavity detail are preferred by men and women who need total encasement in rubber during sexual penetration.

I think that’s so ironic! Men hate condoms, but when a guy designs externally accessed condoms for vaginal and anal penetration of a woman in a catsuit guys line up to fuck her! How weird is that? Go figure! I know, it is a mental thing that has to do with her being absolutely totally encased in latex and under his control, but still… The good news is that being sexually penetrated while encased in a suit like that a woman should be totally safe from STIs and being visited by the hCG Fairy.

Labia Labs: So, here is my idea. I think a suit of that sort might be just the thing to fill the needs of a niche market, members of the BDSM community here, both men and women, who have incurable STIs, who until now have been shunned (for sex) by other members of the fetish community and commercial escorts because of the likelihood of becoming infected themselves. I was going to email HW Design who made the suit shown at the top of this entry, and ask if the style suit I’m interested in is still available, because I didn’t find it in their on-line catalogue. A lot of HW Design’s encasement suits can be seen on the Austrian rubber fetish site http://www.rubber.at/ (in the free tour section) which is where I got the Images to illustrate this entry. I was also going to ask HW Design about how the seams in their latex suits are sealed with glue or welded, but then I thought rather than dealing with a European manufacturer I could get Gepetto’s latex shop, Labia Labs, to mould me a catsuit (they already have my measurements) with the new super stretchy surgical latex formulation from Jeff’s labs. [Returning readers will remember that Gepetto and Jeff partnered (through Labia Labs) to create the GG+ armored gas guard after some guy in the Vegas area recently began wearing a ‘Shredder’ Prince Albert piercing.] A nice HW Design latex catsuit from their current catalogue costs more than €500 EUR, about $675 USD. Since Gepetto has my measurements and since I own a significant percentage of Labia Labs the cost of any design work should be competitive and I could go in for fittings if necessary.

Vaginal sheath opening through latex encasement suit

I’m thinking that a .5 mm suit thickness would be awesome, but I’d want concurrence from the designers and chemists that .5 mm is the optimum thickness for protection against STI viruses. Then if we have any problems with the design I can just go across town not ship the suit back to Austria. Of course being fucked while wearing a .5 mm thick condom, even with marvelous heat transfer properties, will decrease the sensitivity, but I’m thinking that by putting a velvet surface on the side against the vaginal walls that should convert what little movement there is into a caress as well as pressure. And an added safety feature no one but Labia Labs has is treating the inner surfaces of the vaginal, anal and oral inserts with the scratch and puncture resistant nanofilament mesh just like is used on the puncture resistant GG+ gas guards to protect against a man wearing a Prince Albert shredder, and to prevent accidental punctures resulting in HIV or HSV positive semen deposited against the wearer’s cervix, up her anus or down her throat. Punctures of oral sheathes are especially likely from getting caught on the sharp edges of the wearer’s teeth.

Wearing comfort: I think it will be interesting to see how comfortable the wearer’s pelvic area will be with the heavy rubber condom sheathes inserted in both vagina and anus and how tricky it will be to get them inserted unfolded so they don’t twist and jam when penetration is attempted. I’m planning to use a small training dildo inserted in the well lubed sheaths to get them inserted correctly w/o getting them twisted or folded over in a manner that would block total penetration. I think a critical dimension of the suit will be the waist and how snugly it fits the wearer’s hips as that will control how well the crotch – and therefore the body cavity sheathes – fit and if they tend to pull out if the wearer moves too much. Ideally the vaginal and anal sheathes should stay in position even if the wearer exercises in the suit. If that turns out to be a problem I can have an anti-expulsion ring fitted into the vaginal sheath. The vaginal sheath itself will have to be at least 9 inches long to permit deep penetration when the woman is aroused and her vagina tented. For women used to wearing a Penetrator plug during their daily routine there may be little difference except that her vagina won’t feel as full, until a man or dildo enters the sheath. For men the anal condom may not be objectionable if they are used to having a butt plug inserted. I know some gay men who go to work with butt plugs inserted just like girls who wear their Penetrator plugs all the time. Guys who routinely wear butt plugs shouldn’t have a problem with the anal sheath. Of course discomfort from a heavy rubber condom in the anus could be one purpose of having the person wear the suit. It’s certain that for the safety of the wearer s/he should use a good long lasting lubricating gel in the vagina, anus and applied inside all three sheathes to lessen the friction of a penis or dildo. One down side of this type of double penetration suit is that it takes a long time to get out of it to go to the bathroom and to reinsert the pelvic cavity sheathes and become totally encased again afterward.

Vaginal sheath with dildo inserted

Testing for leaks: The labs will make over-pressure tests with both air and fluids to see if they can get the three sheathes themselves and any sheath seams to fail. And each suit’s sheath-set will be inspected by high intensity light to look for thin spots and pin holes in the rubber before the woman or man puts it on for an STI positive encounter. There is a small but very wealthy group of HIV or HSV positive fetishists in Vegas who have been interested in being sexually active with STI free members of the fetish community, but until now there were only the traditional male and female condoms that offer only marginal protection at best from genital secretions and none from other bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, anal waste and vomit. Of course once used the STI positive client has effectively ‘bought’ the suit since it can not be disinfected for use with another client so it will be saved in a virus proof storage bag for reuse if s/he can afford another encasement suit encounter.

Jilling-off

The Mantis position using a Jilling-chain

AST: I'm starting to teach Advanced Sexual Techniques next week so I’m previewing the lessons using Cyndi and Gigi with some of the senior male escort candidates. The girls are 16 now and legal in Nevada so that makes meeting new men easier for them which is so important in broadening (and deepening) beautiful teen’s sexual experiences. In the past we had often used UNLV grad students as the girl’s partners. They were enthusiastic, but many lacked the skills to provide the sort of intense encounters we want St Lucy’s girls to experience. This will be the first time we have had escorts work exclusively with St Lucy’s students to explore the depths of their passion and if Cyndi and Gigi are any indication the joining of the groups will be a huge success. Everyone is screened and free of STIs so it’s just the hCG Fairy to be wary of and all my AST students are familiar with the needed precautions to keep her away while allowing their partners a deep finish bareback encounter.

Since our male escorts are very familiar with dive sex using the young men to train St Lucy’s girls to reach the proficiency needed to be safe and confident during underwater intercourse is a perfect fit. The students already have the guys head-shots pinned to their dorm walls and are dreaming of toe-curling sex while sucking gas twenty feet below the surface of a training pool. They will train wearing only bikinis and gas guards at first advancing through the skills needed to be penetrated comfortably while wearing latex DiveRubber. Then they will move on to masturbation in encasement suits both solo and with a partner.

Jilling off: The vibrator and female masturbation are intimately connected at St Lucy’s. We teach a multitude of ways to Jill-off and recommend using extra long life cadmium batteries in vibrators so as not to have a power failure at a critical moment. And a girl should always carry extra batteries in her dancebag or slit-kit. I covered masturbating while submerged in a drysuit in my entry ‘Drysuit masturbation’ for January 27, 2010 so I won’t go over that again here except to say that drysuit masturbation is covered for St Lucy’s girls in my AST course and comes at the end of the course when the girls are familiar with using different vibis and grope cups.

Jilling-chains: A particularly creative method of clitoral masturbation and one often used by lesbians in the BDSM community here in Vegas is by using a Jilling-chain. Regular Jilling-chains are highly polished links of stainless steel and come in all sizes. A wide selection of Jilling chains is available in the masturbation supplies aisle at Fasteners our Bondage boutique where fitters can advise women who are selecting their first Jilling chain or have problems using a Jilling chain that they would like to overcome.

St Lucy’s beginners typically start with ¾ inch links of 2/16 diameter chain. As they develop their chain skills students graduate to both larger and smaller links depending on their individual needs at the time so there is no right or wrong size. Bigger is not necessarily better. Larger links are heavier, but slide in the mons veneris pubic cleft and over the clitoris more easily than smaller links which are used when a girl wants a less granular masturbatory experience. The Jilling-chain is attached to the users slave collar and weights can be attached to the end that descends along the pubic cleft, over the clitoris and between the labia to hang between her legs. Movement of the chain in the pubic cleft, against the clit and between the labia is obtained by the woman nodding her head moving her neck which moves the slave collar fastened snugly around it (to which the Jilling chain is attached). Another method of getting movement of the chain across her pubic erogenous zone is by thrusting her hips while she has them raised off the bed – called the Mantis position - as shown in the image accompanying this entry. Using a Jilling chain in Mantis is something that takes a lot of training to accomplish successfully because the muscle toning and stamina needed for pelvic thrusts in that position are considerable.

Jilling chains in public: As tokens of lasting affection silver or gold Jilling chains are given between committed lesbian couples who are out to society and can be worm as belts or chatelaines in public. If worn in public by a couple the size of the links are representative only of the size that pleases the wearer and has nothing to do with skill level. Usually the more delicate chains are made of gold or platinum and the larger linked chains are made from silver, but not always. Lesbians who lose their partners by death are entitled to wear a Jilling chain entwined with a string of black onyx beads and when she is no longer in mourning and looking for another partner she removes her onyx widows Jilling chain. Though that is the custom you rarely see a widows chain being worn, at least around here. In lesbian circles it is a gross breach of etiquette for a young lesbian (outside a committed relationship) to wear a Jilling chain in public regardless of how skilled she is with it. Making that great a social blunder in a Sappho’s sisters club can cause an ‘enforcer’ to drive the 7 inch spike of her boot through the laces and instep of the offender’s ballet boot.

A reader’s question: “Would you ever teach ballet to students in all latex?” I do occasionally teach pointe class with a few St Lucy’s students in latex catsuits – a standard suit is the latex House of Harlot DiveRubber - as an elective in my Advanced Sexual Techniques (AST) course. It is an exhausting class because the heat generated by exertion while encased in rubber is excessive so very few students are interested in taking latex-pointe. Only ballet girls in rubber-lust apply. To prevent collapsing the studio is chilled to 65 degrees and the girls take a break every 20 minutes and drink sports drinks like Gatorade to replace electrolytes. An advantage to taking the course is the latex-points students can get modeling jobs with ancillary benefits from the local BDSM community for charity events.