Archive Page 2
We were sitting in his car on a dark street outside my apartment. He was giving me a ride home. I remember thinking about how still everything seemed for my usually chaotic urban street. We’d been at some bar or something, someone’s house drinking. Who knows.
I do know that when I told him I was doing sex work, he asked me how I could call myself a feminist and whore myself out. I told him that I didn’t see it that way, and got out of his car angrily.
He was one of only a handful of people who I told who opposed my entrance into sex work. For all the stunning plethora of reasons I should not have done sex work my first go around, the fact that a friend thought it was anti-feminist seems the most laughable to me.
And I go back and forth about this. I think sex work is feminist neutral. I don’t think that sex work as an occupation is a system of male domination so much as I think sex work as an occupation exists in a system of male domination, among other oppressions.
I do balk at the number of young, hipster feminists (such as I once was) who think that doing sex work is this bitching transgressive act, like wearing pants or something used to be. That alarms me because I don’t think that sex work should be some sort of fucking street cred, or something young, hipster feminists do because they’ve read a bunch of books about it. I’m making a bunch of gross over-simplifications here. But I know from experience that this is a bad fucking idea.
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Tags: feminism, sex work
Listening to my heart.
At the height of my illness (and the lowest weight), I would lie awake at night, watching the clock tick the minutes out. I would plant one hand on my chest and count the beats. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. And wonder where it would end up. The number got progressively smaller. If I had a spry day, I lingered in the forties. On a bad day, the thirties. It seemed monumental at the time. And still does, but for different reasons.
The cliched phrase “listen to your heart” has a different meaning for me. I wonder if I’m the only person like this. I was never really aware of my heart at all times until I first got sick. Then I became hyper-aware of the movement of my heart. The beats it made, the beats it failed. This hyper-awareness continues with me to this day, even though on most days, I sit in the mid-fifties and the skipped beats have drastically reduced since someone went in and fixed me.
It’s an odd mind frame to be in, to be constantly aware of what your heart is doing. I lived for years and years with the ever-present specter of my heart stopping. Palpitations are frightening. You feel your heart falter and you close your eyes and wait for it to beat again. It may only be a second, but you wait, and you wonder what you will do if the next beat never comes.
I was hiking once during a brief month or two when the eating disorder had relaxed its grip on me. I got to the summit of the hill, my goal, after several hours of effort. As I looked down, I felt that old familiar friend tapping me on the breast bone. Beat, skip, skip, skip, beat-beat, skip, beat, skip skip. I sat down and waited for it to pass. It did not. I looked out over the tree tops and waited for each beat, trying not to hold my breath. I imagined the authorities finding my dead body slumped over on the rock I sat on.
So when people say that eating disorders are about being thin, about being perfect, about cultural standards of beauty, I can’t help but reflect on that experience and pause to feel my slow but finally steady heart. That was the specter that haunted me that day hiking, not that I wanted to be beautiful and thin, but that with each beat my heart failed to make, I felt that I deserved it.
The manifestation of such intense self-hatred and shame is channeled by cultural standards and messages to women about their bodies. But putting “healthy” weight women on magazine covers and runways isn’t going to stop another young girl from counting her ever-slowing heart rate as sign of progress. Valuing women and their bodies is what is going to do that.
Overly simplistic, yes. I do not pretend to know how to fix this problem. But I have an idea where to start.
When I draw the line between my eating disorder and my entrance into sex work, I connect the worthlessness I felt about my own body and self to the cultural messages about the bodies of sex workers. That was what drew me in as an activist. I see a parallel between the many women in this country who view their bodies as targets of their self-hatred and the broader culture that dismisses the murder and violence visited upon sex workers a mere job hazard.
Now, when I listen to my heart, I feel an even, strong despite being a tad slow, pulse. My body is not disposable, not to me, not to a society that frowns upon my line of work.
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Tags: activism, bodies, crazy, eating disorder, feminism, mental illness, sex work, women
Bust out your Pepto!
Bust out your Pepto because this is going to make you sick. Renegade Evolution posted Donna Hughes’s response to a letter by fifty academics opposing the banning of indoor prostitution in Rhode Island. Other bloggers like Amber Rhea have analyzed Hughes’s letter. (A Feminist View gives an amazing account.) What I find most interesting is that of the two main signers of the letter (Elizabeth Woods and Ronald Weitzner), Hughes personally attacked Dr Wood. The woman of the two. Sexism for the win!
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Tags: feminism, law, sex work, sexism
Feminism and “women do this”
Often times, I’ll be writing about something and think, wouldn’t it be fucking wonderful if I had an example of what I mean? Well, I do, for once! Amber Rhea wrote a response to some discussion that was happening over at Renegade Evolution’s post. I’ve noticed a trend recently that I feel like needs to be visited by the Ghost of Feminism 101.
There are things men do and there are things women do. And then there is gender as a system of privilege (sexism, patriarchy, whatever you call it). In these examples, whatever percentage you want to put on how many decent guys are in the world is distinct from the privilege that all men have as men. (Of course, I’m making some serious generalizations and completely ignoring cis privilege, but since there are multiple systems of privilege, I’m going to say that I’m talking about gender privilege here. Although it is tightly bound up with cis privilege and sexuality, it can be thought of as its own system.)
I’ve noticed a lot of comments from friends, other people, the internet, saying things like, well, feminism is about letting women make their own choices. Sort of. Feminism is about eliminating the inequalities based on gender that hold women back from deciding for themselves. It may seem like a gray area and I’m being nit picky, but there’s a big fucking difference. There things white people do (and like!), and then there is white privilege. I may be totally awesome and aware and have black friends (to quote the trope) and all that, but when I have a run in with the police, it’s different to me and the police officer than for my black friend.
I’m going to extend this to the debate about sex work because I’m mostly familiar with that one. I really, really don’t like the feminism empowers women and women are empowered to choose sex work! argument in support of sex work. I believe that people who use this argument have their hearts in the right place, but it doesn’t address the criticism lobbed at sex work. You can’t make an individual-level argument (“But I voted for Obama!”) to counter a system-level one (“White people are more likely to be called back for job interviews”). I think that the whole argument about how sex work is a form of sexism because whatever, whatever, is incorrect. That’s a whole separate post, though.
To say that an industry like sex work shouldn’t be criticized because individual women are doing this, this, and this, is confusing what women do with women as a whole, with gender privilege. To say that all men are these evil, abusive johns, who are basically just raping all sex workers also confuses things individual men do with gender privilege that all men have as men. We live in a rape culture, certainly, but this confusion blurs the line and forgets the reality that some individual men have and do rape individual sex workers.
There is some gray, something mushy in the middle, between the choices people make as individuals and the system that informs their choices and restrains their actions. A dude has all the gender privilege in the world, but at the end of the day, if he rapes someone, he’s a fucking asshole. He, as a person, as a human being, not him as a man.
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Tags: feminism, gender, sex work, sexism
When I first read Thin Privilege 101, I have to admit, it irked me a little bit. I’ve been following feminist debates about thin privilege, since (as some of my posts have shown) I have a tendency to become hyper-defensive about my experiences living with an eating disorder. As with all conversations of privilege, the privileged tend to air on the side of “but we have it bad, too!”. (Even hear a white person complain about how all the people of color are taking the jobs? Or a man complain about how women get drinks bought for them in bars?) It happens with thin women, too, who flock to the but-we-have-body-issues-too camp.
After chewing over why it was that this insightful, well-written primer in thin privilege irked me, I realized it was because the whole hullabaloo from thin women about thin privilege has a tendency to ignore this simple fact: there are multiple oppressions. Having one privilege does not been you have another, and vice versa.
So, here’s going to be my letter to thin women in Western society, from a woman who happens to have thin privilege herself. And I do have thin privilege. I’ve been told all my life that I am attractive (see if I actually believe it, though!) and if my scale is right and you put stock in the BMI system, I’m about ten pounds under qualifying as normal. Thus, I have thin privilege.
However, just because I have thin privilege does not mean I automatically have other privileges. I do not have sane privilege. (I’ve decided to call it sane privilege because I’m still not sure that I like the language of ableism for mental health issues. It’s going to be all about crazy and sane privilege for me.) While to all the world, I have thin privilege, I have had it largely because I’m fucking crazy and have been for most of my life.
This is what thin feminists should know about thin privilege. You can have it while simultaneously being un-privileged as a person with an eating disorder, thin because of that lack of sane privilege. Now, I’m not talking about how all women have body problems and most are always on a diet. I’m talking about people who actually have eating disorders. Who probably don’t even think they have thin privilege.
Ugh. Okay. So. Reread my post and have a drink every time I use the word “privilege” and you’ll be shit-faced by now.
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Tags: crazy, privilege, thin
Profanity-laced safer sex tear.
Even though I was raised in an abstinence-only environment and had no formal training on safer sex techniques, today I am the queen of safer sex techniques. However, it seems like the world around me is living in the abstinence-only bubble of mythology about STDs. Which is why when I saw SerpentLibertine’s most recent post, I had to give a resounding hell fucking yes.
The idea that any client (hobbyist) would want to have unprotected sex with a stranger is shocking to me. I mean, how fucking stupid can you be? I’m going to make no bones about this. Sex is fucking risky. If you are having unprotected sex, you are putting yourself at risk. Not just yourself, but probably your poor wife at home who is suspicious but has no idea. And not only that, you are disrespecting the provider by being an asshole.
I can’t blame the workers because there is a lot of pressure in many avenues of sex work to offer unsafe sex practices. How many emails a day do I get asking to “worship” me (which is really just code for unprotected rimming)? I don’t do that. I’d work a lot more if I did. But I’m also fortunate to be able to make that decision economically.
It does amaze me, though, the misinformation about safer sex out there in the world, especially among hobbyists and workers. Serpent mentions in the post a hobbyist posting on a board about the safety of unprotected oral sex, and the response being to go elsewhere for information. It seems to me that these hobbyists don’t know the first fucking thing about safer sex. (Ever hear the one about the hobbyist who thought two condoms was safer?)
It also surprises me the number of people in general who have risky casual sex. It is, as Serpent says, an idea that there are “those kind of people” who have STDs and those who don’t. You can’t tell from what someone is wearing what kind of STD they have. I’ve known several dudes (fortunately not in the horizontal tango kind of way) who know they have herpes or something similar and will happily “forget” to mention it or lie through their teeth about it to the girls they’re fucking. Which is, of course, the fun double standard our society has about women and STDs. Dudes who have STDs just got burned. Women who have them are fucking dirty whores.
The idea of having unprotected (heterosexual) sex freaks me out, sort of like Hexpletive’s response. Additionally, diseases like HPV and herpes don’t even require a penis to go into a vagina or anus to be transmitted, or for that matter, a penis to go into a mouth. In my perfect world, all sex workers would use dental dams, gloves, and condoms. I know I never touch anyone without gloves on.
And, before anyone accosts me, I am not judging anyone for their safer sex choices. Okay, I’m judging asshole hobbyists who push for unsafe acts. And assholes who lie about having an STD. But beyond that, I know that none of us are perfect. I know I’ve made some safer sex mistakes in my life. But the point is this: educate yourself and use that education to empower your choices. You only get one body.
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Tags: condoms, safe sex, safer sex, sex, sex work, STDs
Up swing.
You know, as I imagine all workers do, I go through ups and downs with being enamored of my job. It’s been like this my entire working life. I just happen to have the undeniable privilege of having a job I more enjoy than dislike. I’ve been on kind of down swing, just irritated with the stigma, the petty annoyances, the serious harms. But right now, I’m definitely on an up. It’s been quite a journey through the different avenues of sex work, but I’m glad to have settled in a job I really like doing.
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Tags: sex work
It’s the economy. (No shit.)
There have been a flurry of articles recently about the economic downturn and the sex industry. Apparently, journalists have decided that there is a trend of more and more women turning to sex work when other economic opportunities wither. (I’m not sure if this is a real trend or not.)
Two things strike me about these articles and news stories. The first is the kind of paternalistic, pat-on-the-head nonsense that fills these stories. Oh, these are women who have college degrees and husbands. They are not those kind of girls. They’re just doing this because they lost their jobs or their husbands did. My god, as if no one had ever done sex work for the money before! As if no one with a family and a degree had ever done sex work before!
And no shit people do sex work for the money. As much as I love my job, I wouldn’t do it for minimum wage. It is sometimes dangerous, stigmatized, and can be treated as illegal under the law. Even the forms of sex work lowest paid make more than minimum wage.
The other thing I’ve noticed, for example this charming Salon piece, is how shockingly hard sex work is. I’m not sure if it’s the reporting, or if people are honestly feeling this way. I know that’s the stereotype. Easy, effortless money. It’s called sex work for a reason. This tripped me up, too, when I first started. My naivete got the best of me. Sex work requires a set of skills.
The problem with sex work is not because of the usual song and dance as highlighted by these articles. It’s the stigma and isolation that people turn to it in.
This is why sex work organizations are important. If more and more people are turning to sex work in the current economic climate, it’s important they do so with the supportive atmosphere and resources such as skill shares offered by sex work organizations. Being broke and alone is a fucking shitty thing. Being broke, alone, and burned by sex work is a far shittier thing. Being no longer broke because of a successful foray into sex work is an awesome thing.
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Tags: economy, sex work
Is it a form of ableism to talk about quasi-eating-disordered experiences? I struggle with this so frequently, and I am never sure how to address it. I know, based on my emotional reaction, that something is happening which is troubling to me. I know that I feel marginalized. But feeling marginalized and being marginalized are two different things.
Western culture puts an emphasis on the appearance of women. Hell, the appearance of everyone. Books like Appetites and Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters speak to this. Beauty, perfection, achievement, these are all pressures, conformity to a white middle-class idealized standard. This is nothing new. This is Feminism 101. Or something. Commodification, objectification, patriarchy, normatives, the male gaze. These are basic concepts that many people like to use in a superficial way, without getting into a deeper analysis of why. (I’m the perpetual child: Why? But why? No, really, why?)
As a result, women and men restrict their dietary habits, exercise, obsess about their bodies, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. Big fucking revelation there, I’m sure. Pretty much every study shows how most women are obsessed, have some disordered practices, occasionally engage in more self-destructive behaviors.
Then there are those with (how shall I say this?) non-normative body types. The ulta-skinny, the not-so ulta-skinny. I’ve seen a recent trend of the ultra-skinny people defending themselves against talk of thin privilege (why, anyway?) with how difficult and hurtful it is to constantly be asked if you are anorexic or whatever.
So, we have two groups of people so far. Here’s the third, the group I belong to: the eating disordered. And I’m not talking about people who necessarily have to fit the DSM criteria for an eating disorder to fit. I have huge problems with these criteria and how they are used to test who is “really” sick and who deserves treatment (especially insurance-sponsored treatment). I am talking about people who meet the barest requirements for a substantial period of time, like several months to several years.
There are qualitative differences among these three groups. If you threw up once or twice, maybe occasionally, because you feel pressured to hate your body, you do not have bulimia. If you once fasted for a month because of whatever cultural reason, you do not have anorexia. And banish from the English language the phrase “dabbled with/in (eating disorder)”. I fucking hate that phrase with a passion.
I’m not trying to be black and white here. I’m not trying to make an us v. them argument. I’m not trying to downplay the pain and suffering that many people endure because of these stupid fucking standards. I’m not at all. I’m not saying the eating disordered have a monopoly on body-based suffering.
Here’s what I’m saying: there are qualitative differences among these groups. Eating disorders may be culturally and socially motivated in form, but they are biological illnesses. They are addictions. They are caused by a whole set of factors and are in every way real illnesses. They cause physical and emotional damage that takes years to unravel. There is a reason only half or so of us ever truly recover. While all three groups are responding to conditions, there is something singular about having an eating disorder.
When a person uses that hated phrase or complains about being accused of having an eating disorder unjustly, it is an invalidation of my experience. A college kid who occasionally binge-drinks is as much of an alcoholic as a person who occasionally skips lunch is an anorexic.
Here’s the problem, to me, I think: these kinds of discussions lead away from discussing the real problem of eating disorders. And I think it smacks of privilege. I’m not saying that we should not have these conversations. No, we should. We fucking need to. I am saying that it smacks of privilege for someone to say anything like, “I went through a phase of dabbling in eating disorders”. (I wish I had an example to share.) Well, good for fucking you. You went through it, you dabbled, you were a tourist to my landscape, you stopped. I wish it were that fucking easy for me and for the people I’ve met throughout my entire battle.
And it’s a struggle for me because I realize how destructive these influences are and how much suffering people undergo because of body issues. I would never want to invalidate their experiences. And yet I do not want to see my experiences invalidated! While jokes made about you being anorexic can be wearing is you are ultra-skinny, jokes made about your anorexia are a different matter. “You should eat something!” to someone ultra-skinny is different than “You should eat something!” said out of a misguided understanding of eating disorders if you are bulimic. I want to see this difference made more often, or these discussions had with more awareness.
This is not to say that my experiences are the be-all and end-all of eating disorders. I recognize that I’m somewhere in the middle. Others had briefer periods of being sick and more rapid, comprehensive treatments. Others have battled for far longer than me, have been far sicker, and have faced worse barriers to treatment. (There’s a “sicker than thou” competition among people with eating disorders, you see.)
So when these discussions happen and there is this lack of awareness of privilege, it is frustrating to me because I continue to experience the aftermath of an eating disorder, even though it has been five years since I first entered recovery. Hell, just the other day, I got a notice about a collection agency wanting money from me from my second hospitalization. Not to mention the ongoing food weirdness and gym obsession. Or the fucking continual physical problems I have.
I want to express these things as the issues come up, but I just find it so hard. I wonder if I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill. Then I wonder if I’m discounting my feelings because I’m a woman, because I had an eating disorder (and the accompanying feelings of self-loathing), or both. Then I wonder if I’m not acknowledging my own privilege (starving people in Africa, etc). Then I get angry. Then the cycle begins anew. It is so hard for me to talk about my eating disorder, about eating disorders in general, because of how much shame I’ve heaped upon myself over the whole thing. (I’d love to tell you, blogosphere, the details of my insanity while sick, perhaps in some misguided effort to exorcise the demons, but when I think about them, I seize up and choke on my shame.)
I want other perspectives. I want to hear what other people think, either from one of the three groups I’ve mentioned, or from another group. Am I wrong? Am I trying to play the Oppression Olympics and cry about how much I’ve suffered? Or is there some validity to how I feel? I think that there is. I know that there is.
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Tags: ableism, crazy, eating disorders, feminism, mental health, privilege
Finances and Sex Work
Starting out or working in the sex industry can be daunting in terms of the financial aspects. Money is coming in, sometimes more than you’ve ever made or even seen before. It can be a bit overwhelming to plan and handle your money. I am not at all a tax professional, financial planner, or really anything but a whore with some experience. This is just advice from me to you, not intended to substitute for professional (well, that kind) advice. It was also not intended to help you avoid the system. Pay your taxes!
First and foremost, you need to plan your budget. How much money do you need to pay rent, utilities, credit card payments, loans, car payments, food bills, and so on? How much money do you need each week or month in order to cover the necessities? Figure this out first. Everything else after this amount is disposable income.
Based on your budget, some market research, and the guidance of other sex workers, calculate your rate. I’m not an expert on this. There are others who can help you, like the book The Internet Escort’s Handbook by Amanda Brooks. Similar principles apply, no matter what type of sex work you do.
Set up a book-keeping system. Having no way to track how much money is coming in and going out will end up hurting you. You’ll have no way to know what you’re averaging and how much you’re spending. This can be as simple as a writing down everything you make in a notebook or as complex as a color-coded spreadsheet or financial software. A good, basic system is the date, the number of or type of appointment or job, and the amount made.
Figure out how to handle your cash. If you are working for a club, dungeon, or company that issues you a paycheck instead of you dealing with cash, skip this.
Decide what you want to do with your cash. Keep in mind that anything you deposit in a bank account, pay bills with, or buy large items with leaves a paper trail. If you want to keep your cash handy, one thing you should invest in is a good fire-proof safe. Keeping a lot of cash on hand is risky as a sex worker. If others find out, you can be at risk of robbery. A safe can help. Don’t hide cash in obvious places, like your mattress, the freezer, your toilet tank, and so on. If you’ve seen it in a movie, other people have, too. Consider having a dummy safe. This is a safe you hide in a more obvious place (under your bed, for example) and keep a small amount of cash in. Then, get a good, sturdy, floor-bolted safe or wall safe to keep more in. If a thief breaks in, the thief will quickly discover your dummy safe and leave your main safe alone.
Depositing cash is a good idea. Consider either a safety deposit box or a bank account. It’s a good idea to have three bank accounts: a personal checking, a savings, and a “business” checking. This can just be a personal account you filter all of your money through before it goes into your personal account. Keeping your money separate can demonstrate that you are organized in your business book-keeping.
Now that you have a budget and are handling your money, start some basic financial planning. What are your long term goals? Are you doing sex work to pay for something, pay off something? A really good rule of thumb is to have three months’ of expenses in savings. That way, if you want to take a break, you get fired, transition, the market turns around, you are hurt and can’t work, you’ll have a cushion. You’ll also have money in case of an emergency, like a car breaking down or a medical bill.
If you can afford it, consider basic health insurance, catastrophic only. If you are young and have no major health problems, you can usually get this cheaply. It will have a high deductable (sometimes $5,000 to $10,000), so it’s not for your annual exam or going into the doctor when you have a cold. It’s just in case you have a major event happen. If you get hit by a car or something equally terrible, the medical bills can wipe you out. Having insurance can protect you.
Once you have met your savings goal of three months’ expenses, start a savings plan for other things. If it’s for school, for a car or a house, or something else, think about your investments. This is my weakest area because, to be honest, having enough money to invest has never really happened to me before. But consider seeing a financial planner for this service, or someone like the Financial Madam. You can make low risk investments, like a savings account with interest, savings bonds, or certificates of deposit. You can also make higher risk investments, like stocks. Having a long-term retirement plan is an awesome idea.
In general, try to be smart with your money. If something is a business investment (like a computer to check your email on, a car, or sometimes clothes), talk to your tax preparer about what is deductible. Otherwise, try to avoid the impulse to spend all of your money just because it’s there. I went through a period like that when I first started working. I had an awesome time and got some lovely shoes, but when I needed to get out like right now, I had absolutely nothing to fall back on.
On the issue of things to do with your money, consider reinvesting in your business. Again, some of these things are tax deductible. Setting up a business model is a good idea. Decide what your long-term goals with your type of sex work are. Use some of your income to place ads in the right places to tap your target market. Get professional photographs. Set up a website. Make little investments to set yourself up for long-term success.
When things get more complicated, there are many more issues to consider, like becoming incorporated or becoming an LLC. These are things I know nothing about at all, hence, talk to a financial planner, an attorney, and definitely your fellow sex workers. Being smart with your money is the best way to gain your independence.
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Tags: finances, financial, money, sex work, taxes
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