CALICO LANE

Escorting was the final frontier in sex work for me.  I’ve hesitated for a long time to talk about it.  Lots of porn girls do it, but few (even the ones who do) admit to it.  Side note: Guys, please don’t construe this as a suggestion that all porn girls escort.  They don’t.  If they do, they’ll put it out there, and if you see it, feel free to pursue it, but don’t tell girls that Calico told you they’re all whores.  OK?  ’Cause they’re not.  OK.

The real trouble wasn’t sex (remember, in porn I’d been having sex with strangers for money since 2005), it was screening clients and answering my phone.  One of my charming eccentricities is that I’m shy; like, really shy.  Incapacitatingly shy.  I know, I’ve done all this fearless shit, right?  And that’s true.  I am totally functional right up to the point where I’m totally not.  One of the few ways I still exhibit it is a crippling fear of phone and email.  So I never thought I could escort until I found an experienced phone-girl-for-hire.  She sounded perfect; I met her other clients; we drew up an agreement for her weekly rate and just like that, we went into business.

Things didn’t go as planned.  She was used to managing tantric body rub girls who charged $300/hr and cleared $3000/week.  At $600/hr, she swore, I’d make $6000 a week… Easy!  Instead, on my best weeks I made a quarter of that.  Usually I’d do one hour in a whole week, half of which was her fee.  Even when I didn’t book work for a week or three, of course, I still had to pay her.  And that happened more often than not.

We parted ways amicably, if befuddled.  At least I was.

It was several months later and several drinks into the night when I met a girl at my house party who told me she was a pro-sub.  ”Oh, yeah?” I said, also several drinks in.  ”What else do you do? Because that’s not really a job.”  ”Well,” she said, “it’s full service.”  ”Really?!” I said.  I’d love to remember that I offered her another drink, but I think I was so engrossed I got us locked on the roof.    That’s me.  Always smooth.

So that was how I met Kat, and started working with her in September, and in a fairly direct relationship, that’s how I went back to college.  If I graduate, that girl deserves a ticket in the bleachers.

Kat works for me on a percentage, rather than a flat fee.  If I don’t book, she doesn’t get paid, which is great for me on the inevitable weeks when I don’t get work!  She doesn’t like to publically discuss the percentage we split, but I will say it’s fair.  It’s much better than 50%, which is the  NYC agency standard.  I will also say I would pay her more in a heartbeat.  Not everyone feels this way about taking a cut, but not everyone is desperately phobic about phones.

Now that I’m in school, I describe it like having my own dating service.  Because I have a specific, fetish-focused ad, I’ll only meet people who are interested in the same sort of [redacted] I am.  Everyone has references, so we know they aren’t serial killers.  And best of all, I don’t even have to do the setup myself.  While I’m struggling through calculus or physics, dates appear magically on my calendar.  But only as many as I want, and only when I want them!  It really doesn’t get better than that.

I’m having the best sex of my life and I just have to show up.  Do you begin to understand why I would pay her more?

This job is not for everybody, but I love it.  I just hope to God I don’t give Kat a breakdown before my senior year.

[Pushing through more drafts. Yay, drafts! Boo, caption formatting that I wanted to be italic, but I am working on sorting it out.]

Let’s write about some cheerful things. I’ve been nostalgic lately, in the loveliest way!

Remember the first time you did something kinky? I do.  I found a munch in Boston.  I didn’t go the first time — I walked around a bunch of times, lost my nerve, and went home.  The next month I came back and I met some kids from the local college.  One was … let’s call him Joffrey.  (No relation to the character from GoT.)

He was tall with long hair, a bony sort of face, and piercing blue eyes.  He wore a Utilikilt that was always slightly rumpled.  He was brilliant and probably insane, but in a riveting way.  Like a nerdy Loki.

Talk Python to me.

Now that I think about it, there is a really uncanny resemblance.  I can’t think about it too much or I might have to go touch myself in the bathroom.

Thanks to the magic of Gmail, I was able to go all the way back to 2005 (!) and find Joffrey’s first email:

I particularly enjoyed meeting you yesterday not because you are smart, hot, and crazy-like, but because you are doing your own damn thing and looking sharp doing it.

If you are amenable, I would like to eat your soul. Are you doing anything this Saturday?

I have no recollection of what damn thing I was doing at the time.  Likely, baking cakes and nude modeling.  I had just dropped out of college in a depressive blaze of glory.  All I owned was a self-esteem problem and a pair of New Rocks.

Awww, the floral bedspread.

That is the kind of boot that wears you.  Which they did me until I wised up and sold them on eBay.

I visited him in Boston and we went to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror, that cultural institution for many people of non-normative sexuality.  It may have been 2005, but it made an impression on sheltered me.  I know, Rocky Horror was the ’70s — but to me the ’70s were news!  A girl pretended to sodomize me, I was forced to do publically humiliating things, and strangers touched me with their pelvii.  I was overwhelmed and roundly embarrassed.

The T was closed when we emerged and the weather cold and misty.  We made out on the street before he suggested we walk home from Harvard to Central.  My Docs gave me terrible blisters, but I didn’t say a word.

I remember that he tied my wrists with a white rope from a basket he pulled from under his bed.  He knotted the long end and closed it overtop of his bedroom door.  Then he took off his wide, double-grommeted belt and spanked me with it.  I’d had sex before, sure, but wanting something so badly felt alarming, like I couldn’t breathe or that my heart might stop.

He kept touching my tied hands with his warm hands as my fingers went purple and then cold.  ”I should untie you,” he told me, and did.

It was the first time anyone had really hit me.  And I imprinted like a duckling: deep and unconditional.

I ran to see the markings in the bathroom mirror.  There were white raised circles left by the oversized grommets, surrounded by speckled red and purple bruising. It was violent and beautiful.

I walked around my bakery blushing, wet, and unable to think straight for days.  When I wrote to thank him, I told him I looked like an Appaloosa pony.

The white rump is a breed characteristic called a blanket or "snowcap". And yet, I had never heard of a "drag queen".

Years later, leaving a Brooklyn rave in the pouring rain, I gave a ride to a couple I’d just met.  The boy turned out to be half of the Seattle company who’d made that belt!  He told me they never expected people to hit each other with it.

Like this but with much bigger grommets.

I ask you, readers: what else are you supposed to do with a three-inch-wide belt from a site named “Vegan Erotica”?  The only thing with large enough belt loops is … a Utilikilt.

Jeoffrey moved to San Francisco (and I think dated a string of tiny Asian women, though don’t quote me) and we grew apart a bit.  Which was probably healthy for me. But I have such fond memories — both of exploring kink with him, and of friendship and kindness.  It is hard to date young people, let alone to do it with respect and good humor, when you are dating all the equally young and confused people into whom they are rapidly changing.  And it’s hard to acknowledge that formal schooling and social attitudes about sex are broken, while still calling your young person on their silliness.

I found this in one of his first emails, and it made me misty.

Don’t worry too much about college. [...]

The important things are getting in with the best group of people you can, believing in yourself, and not letting other people set the rules of the game.

Often what works best is disarming audacity. Somehow we seem to have shit for role models, so you just have to make it up as you go.

It’s still nice to hear today what I needed to hear at 20. Thanks, sweetheart. You still have my soul, if there’s anything left of it to eat!

[I'm bumping off a series of old drafts. This was written some time in December or January, not sure.]

Shit has been rough since I broke up with the Doctor, not gonna lie.

Everything in my life is going right, but it’s been hard to let old dreams go, even though I am celebrating the new opportunities.  I threw out 70% of the things I owned and cried incessantly (including in my sleep).  I got sick, and then couldn’t get better.  (I’m still getting sick all the time. I haven’t had a real home since Hurricane Sandy.  But carrying a toothbrush and spare panties at all times is not what I would call hardship?)

Sometimes there is no way around experiencing grief.  At the risk of tautologizing, you are going to feel your feelings whether you like it or not.

I’m grateful for the last three years.  It taught me that I could experience submission and that someone could offer me a collar.  It taught me that a partner could accept me doing sex work.   That I was the sort of woman someone might marry (although thankfully we didn’t, or I’d be learning I’m the sort of woman one divorces!).  That I could experience the full depth and depravity of my kinks without abuse and within a loving, intimate relationship.

In some ways the amicable splits are the hardest.  But of course the hardest split (like the coldest winter) is always the one you’re going through.

There have been uplifting things already, like realizing that I can buy sweatpants AND granny panties AND WEAR THEM BOTH TOGETHER.  I can stay in on Saturday nights and sew things.  I can take myself on a window-shopping date to IKEA twice in one week!

There are also sad things.  Did you know that things labeled “frozen dinner” are sometimes only 300 calories?  Either I am a ginormous porkface or this is a cruel, cruel lie.  And apartment shopping — because even at the end of a successful urban apartment search, you have the place you can afford.

My sister came over to the new digs to see how I was doing.  I showed her a scarf I sewed. “It’s nice,” she said, “in a Raggedy Ann kind of way.”  And then: “You are this close to opening your own Etsy store.”

I ask you, who doesn’t want to look like Raggedy Ann?

The original spunky redhead.

I’ll be back being fabulous soon.  In the meantime, here is a Scott Church photo of me looking fabulous.

Last Saturday.

On a completely different note: hit me up if you’re a girl (in the NYC area) who has considered pro-subbing and you want to talk about it.  I might have an opportunity for you.

I have a branding problem: clients don’t like my blog.  Well, half do, and half find it uncomfortably personal, even alarming.  When I bring this up, folks’ immediate reaction is to bash the clients who don’t like my blog, like these gents don’t understand that my lived experience is nuanced, or something.  But I’ve met them and they’re not freaked out by me — it’s only the blog.  If they are having trouble contextualizing my talk about Rape or Issues, it might be how I’m coming across.

This is extreme, but here is an actual email I received, just to show you what I mean:

Hello,

I found some of your videos online,  then started reading your blog and saw how it seems that you struggle to make ends meet and that you’ve been raped and seems like sex has been ruined for you. So I wanted to ask you about what it’s like being in the porn business, I guess I always justified looking at porn because I thought the actresses got paid tons of money. I really want to quit looking at porn because it is ruining my relationship with my girlfriend and she doesn’t even know I look at it. I Thought maybe hearing the truth behind porn would be enough to get me to quit. IIt’s 4am and I really don’t know why I’m writing you but your response would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

While I don’t want to meet this guy, this is also not my desired takeaway.

I could quit blogging, but I won’t. I enjoy writing.  Most importantly, blogging brings people into my life all the time.  They say they wanted to meet me or were attracted to me because of my writing.  That is, like, crazytalk.  How do I give that up?  It would be like cutting off a perfectly good tit. Blogging gives me credibility with other sex workers, it shows people that I am intelligent, and it is a damn good personals ad.

I think reestablishing a work page will help, for sure.  Mine got domain snatched and now I only have a corner on my boss’s site, so when people want to know more, they inevitably come here.  Not everyone needs to read my diary and it certainly isn’t the same as photos of my ass.  And if I write more, the tough posts get padded with other content — sexy, silly, practical — and that ought to help too.  What else can I try?

You know what’s crazy?  I’ve been “in the scene” for 8 years.  I really thought I would have gotten farther.  Personally, not professionally, that is.  This has always been about my personal growth, at the constant expense of professional everything.

I have met incredible people and had transcendent experiences that I will take to my grave.

I’m still not at peace with wanting this.   It’s isolating and ugly and I still feel ashamed.  Maybe I always will.

Someone asked me a few weeks ago: Why do you call yourself a whore?  Why do you want to do that?  It could have been the same question as all the others.  Why do you do porn? Or BDSM?  Or one of a million filthy fucking things?

I know I should say that it’s a statement, and it was, it is; it’s a statement that we are OK. That I am OK.  As submissives, or whores, or women, or … people.

So why do I keep doing it?  My reason is not “empowering” or sex-positive or whatever the fuck.  It’s because I hope maybe, if I reach the bottom, I’ll realize there is nothing left to fear.

So I keep trying to reach the bottom.

With latex!  I’ve started working in the studio with Klawdya for her eponymously named Klawtex.  Only a couple days a week, so you will continue to find me up to my usual hijinks.

I did smoke a little in the sunlight when I got up before noon, but so far, no spontaneous combustion.  Oh, and I had to sign a lot of papers.  I won’t be teaching latex classes (at least on my own, for free) or selling my own designs (at least, that are not made and produced through her) but I wasn’t interested in doing that anyway so it’s all good.

This means that when I learn to bone latex corsets, I won’t be able to tell you.  Bummer.  But I can report that everything I taught myself from the Internet is solid.  That’s pretty sweet!  Obviously there’s a lot more to latex clothing than sticking one piece on the other, but that will get you 90% of the way.

I’m amazed that my stripper nails seem to be holding up to the solvents. Go go OPI gel!

The same could not be said of my cuticles.  Fetish model problems?

What would stripper boot camp be?  Contract work like Guam, or those rural clubs that house their contract girls on site?)  NYC isn’t, but it sure is nice to get away from it from time to time.

Working anywhere with stage tipping, no matter how constrained and pathetic, is like being handed free money.  It helps with the pain of paying house fees.  Counting out ones I picked up from the stage feels like magic.  They’re barely money and yet after eight hours they, like, totally add up!

Another difference: I don’t mind floor work and I love poles, but I’m not used to them.  Or hourly stage.  I am covered in bruises and I could eat a horse.

Look ma, a bruise I didn’t get from sadomasochism!

No, I’m not working on the regular … just getting a breath of fresh air.

New York women are well-heeled.  I mean literally.  Not all of them, not even most of them — but an astonishing number trip around these streets in stilettos. I want to know: where do they go in these things?

I think it was in Super Size Me that I first heard the statistic that New Yorkers walk 4 to 5 miles a day.  Google fails me here, but it sounds right. I’ve never lived closer than .3 miles to a subway.  Often I’ll go home-subway-home twice in a day.  Add to that subway-work-subway, and probably subway-dinner-firstbar-secondbar -subway, and I have a solid four miles without running an errand or taking a stroll.

I don’t realize how much I walk at this point, but I have learned to tell visitors to bring comfortable shoes and a waterbottle, because I will walk them like dogs and they will protest like … tourists.

Before I moved to New York, I didn’t understand cobblers.  I owned shoes for years and they never wore out.  Now that I’ve lived here for five years, I take my shoes to the cobbler like my business friends take suits to the drycleaner.  I’ve had all my heels re-capped — multiple times.  I’ve had my boots resoled.

Before New York I didn’t understand how a pair of shoes could break.  I’ve had heels crack and straps snap.  I’ve lost heel caps (which is like nothing so much as a horse throwing a shoe) and found myself limping on the metal shaft (step KLINK! step KLINK!) to the nearest shoe stand.  I’ve destroyed more pairs of flip-flops, sandals and cheap flats than I can count.

We all have that friend who always wears high heels.  Or at least, I think we do: now that I think about it, I have those friends I only see in high heels.  What is their secret?  Do they slip out of their flats a block before the restaurant? (I do.)  Do they take cabs everywhere? (I don’t!) Do they have feet that magically don’t get blisters and pains, or super-expensive heels that somehow don’t hurt?

I understand wearing heels for a special occasion.  Sometimes there are outfits and times that really call for it, and on those times I take a couple of Aleve and hail a cab.  Martinis are my favorite drink for nights in high heels; not trying to be posh, just efficient.  I reach the point of no pain after one, blissful indifference after two, and the point of graceful exit (if I’m lucky) soon after.

Right now I live .6 miles from the train.  It’s become a litmus test for footwear.  I have to ask myself every time I leave the house: are these two mile shoes?  I’ve tried with all my most modest heels, but I have to conclude, if it has a heel, they’re not.

Usually I cope by stashing a pair of flats in my bag, but I just destroyed my last two pairs.  And now it’s getting to be boot weather.  This is especially vexing since I see no way to tuck over-the-knee Fryes into my purse.

My purse is falling apart too, probably from carrying around too many sex toys shoes.

This isn’t meant to be an argument for heel-wearing, which has little to recommend it except vanity.  It’s just … how.  How do you girls do it?  Inquiring minds (and sore feet) want to know.

“I love you, even though you’re a whore.  But can I ever tell anyone about it?”

Maybe that’s why I tell everyone.

I started making latex clothing out of stubbornness.  Surprise, right?  I didn’t like its expensive, impractical and finicky reputation.  In particular I took offense to the notion that it could only be made by skilled craftspeople working in top-secret European laboratories.

My second dress.  The less said about the first, the better.

Like most craft projects, it took more money and time than I expected.  Also cursing, tears, blisters, and the demise of several acrylic fingernails.  But I feel pretty good about making latex now.  I’ve had a handful of custom-made garments I could never have afforded otherwise, and hours of fun.  You may, of course, define fun differently than I do.

My second dress. The fit is better and I have attempted a buckled halter strap (which you can’t see under my hair).  The pink latex from my failed first dress reappears as “stitched” applique at top and hem.

I acknowledge that latex looks best when made by skilled craftspeople. But most of us aren’t skilled enough to know the difference!  If you’ve graduated kindergarten, you can make latex clothing.

Please don’t sue me, Sanrio!

If you want to start making latex clothing yourself, here’s how to do it:

Buy your supplies at any craft store or order online.

• Rubber cement and thinner. I use Bestine, but Elmer’s brand works as well.
• A self-healing cutting mat.
• An Olfa or similar quality rotary cutter. DRITZ WILL NOT HANDLE LATEX. Ask my nascent carpal tunnel how I know.  (Check out this OLFA kit on Overstock!)
• Silver Sharpies for marking

You probably already have these items:

• Paper towels or lint-free rags.
• A tiny dish or Tupperware for your glue.
• Paintbrush, or credit cards or business cards cut into lengthwise strips (very satisfying!)
• Something to roll your seams.  You can buy a brayer, but I made many dresses without one (see also: nascent carpal tunnel).  Good substitutes are pill bottles, water bottles, or tennis balls: anything round, hard and small that you can use to roll over your seams.
• Plastic to cover your seams.  You can buy cling wrap, but I prefer to use plastic grocery bags cut into strips.  They’re free and it keeps the plastic bag population manageable.

Start with Making Latex Clothing, a blog run by the fabulous Latex Kitty.  She has tutorials on every skill you’ll need to construct clothing, including zippers, ruffles and gathers, applique and edging.  I won’t duplicate them here.

If you’re in North America, order latex sheeting from either MJTrends (cheaper, but not as nice) or Kink Engineering (slightly more expensive, but much nicer, and a beautiful selection of colors).  Spend your money here.  You will screw up several garments, so don’t set yourself up for heartbreak by starting with one yard.   Start with two or three yards of black .45mm.  If you like colors, pick two or three and order one yard of each.

Every time I make a latex order, I try to include one new color.  I make a new garment from it (or try at least) and if I fail it simply becomes a new color in my applique arsenal.

When your stuff arrives, START SLOWLY.  Making Latex Clothing has great beginner projects, like a tank top or fingerless gloves.  I don’t recommend panties as a first project because hips (and butts and bellies) are squishy.

You can draft your patterns from scratch if you know how, using your measurements and latex stretch factors, or start with an existing pattern and modify it.  I think the biggest factor in stepping up your latex clothing game is fitting and patternmaking.  I was very bad at it when I started.  I am now somewhat less terrible.

I’ll leave you with some tips I learned the hard way:

• Don’t wash your latex sheeting until the garment is completed.
• Let your seams dry fully before you handle them.  Walk away.  Read a book if you have to.  This will solve most of your pesky curling problems.
• Cover long, unwieldy seams with strips of plastic after they dry.  Peel back the plastic as you join them.  This will keep them from sticking to each other, you, your surface, pet hair, dust, the walls …
• Cover your Tupperware so your glue doesn’t thicken while you work.
• Keep your hands and surface clean, especially if you’re working with light colors or transparents.
• When seaming a transparent to a solid, make sure the transparent is on the inside of the garment.
• Only polish your latex with silicone when you’re sure you’re done working on it. It will be harder to glue things to it.

Happy shinymaking!

Last week at a fetish party, the Doctor tossed me at Miss Millay.  ”What can I do?” she asked.  I looked at her with big googly eyes and said, “Whatever you want.”

I think a metal rod was involved, and nipple biting, and I remember licking the dirt off the soles of her shoes.  She was wearing black pumps.  Patent, six-inch stiletto heel, covered platform.

[Photos by Ian Reid.] At the time I didn’t realize they were being taken.  That was how small my world was.  Shoe sized.

Afterward the Doctor and I went home and had sex.  I don’t remember it all (there were hours, and I was very sleepy) but I do remember him deciding to practice tracheal intubation at, like, 8am.  It would have been more endearing had it not been my trachea.

The aftermath was colorful.

I think I am good with my Dermablend but this was beyond my power to cover up.  Let’s not even start on the open scratches and the scabs on my nipples.  Did I mention she bit them?

Normally I would spend the week in a funk.  I’d stress about money because I wouldn’t be working.  I’d feel guilty and sexually compulsive, irresponsible and stupid.

Of course, after years of being out and proud the only stupid thing here is my hypocrisy.  If I don’t accept that I’m going to play, every time I do is a “lapse of judgment” and it will make me feel awful and ruin all my plans.  When I am having “lapses” month after month I’m not fucking up, I’m just IN DENIAL UP TO MY EYEBALLS.  Sure, this takes pigheadedness and a special hubris, but I am up to the task.

I can only imagine what I will get done when I can plan for the life I actually lead and divert that willpower to something useful.

I have been trying to be kinder to myself and plan for my “lapses”, so while I wasn’t thrilled to be out of work last week, I also wasn’t upset.  Progress! I’m getting close to picking a web designer, I saw the ever awesome Strap-on Jo, I made some new latex, and I even had a kick-ass photoshoot.   If all goes well I should be back on cam by Wednesday!

I am the last to get on a lot of bandwagons.  Recently, webcamming. (I will blog about this.)  Also, I am going to Burning Man this year.  So far this has involved going to dance parties with electronic music, wearing glitter, and making things with hot glue.  Not so different from usual.

I see Burning Man as an opportunity to adopt more nerdy habits.

Me: Will you still talk to me if I ride a unicycle?

Boy: I’m not sure.

Me: What if I ride it in a tiny little bikini?

Boy: I can’t guarantee it.

Unfortunately the Burning Man community seems to be about art, not just LSD and furry legwarmers.  After years of tiresome “erotica” vs. “porn” debates the word makes me break out in hives.

I am reminded of the conversation I had with a Burner dominatrix friend:

Her: I think of sessioning as a type of performance art.

Me: Ha! I don’t do art.

Her: Really. Then what do you call what you do?

Me: Work.

I’d like to signal boost for a couple of events, one here and one in Boston.

In NYC this Sunday is a “Know Your Rights” labor meeting for exotic dancers.  From the Brunch and Bitch website:

At our next meeting, Sienna Baskin from the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project will be presenting a Know Your Rights training for dancers. Join us for brunch and bring your questions about labor rights, taxes, prostitution laws, and other legal issues.

Sunday May 1, 2011

2 – 4pm

The LGBT Community Center

208 West 13^th Street, between 7^th and 8^th Ave, New York, NY

This meeting is open to current and former dancers who have worked in strip clubs, peepshows, and bachelor parties. Free refreshments, Metrocards, and onsite childcare will be provided.

And in Boston tomorrow night, an event inspired by San Francisco’s very successful Poly Speed Dating: Poly Speed Dating comes to Boston!  If you are interested in supporting the event but are not currently looking for new partners, they are still (as of this morning) looking for volunteers to help run the event, so drop them a line.

I would like to clear up a few misconceptions about Manhattan strip clubs.

I know there are as many types of strip clubs as the day is long, but the popular image of an American strip club seems to consist of three things:

1) The girls pick their own music.

2) Customers tip with ones on stage while the girls are dancing.

3) There is a pole, and the girls dance on it.

Based on these expectations, customers get very confused when they come to NYC strip clubs and then they ask me why my strip club is wrong.  This gets tiresome.  It’s still a strip club — it’s just DIFFERENT.

1) is nominally true in Manhattan.  You can suggest your favorite genres to the DJ, but usually you’ve gotta tip him more for specific songs, and when the club is packed it’s no use trying.  Picking your music is Manhattan is just not a thing like it is in, say, Portland.  MOVING ON.

b) is rarely true in Manhattan.  You can’t sit stageside because there’s usually no tip rail and no seats!  Sometimes an intrepid customer will get up from his table, wind through the chairs and approach the stage, ones in hand, but the girls — considering ones an insult — may leave them on the stage.  I have even seen girls kick them back off.  To me this seems like spitting in the face of the money gods, but whatever — they seem to do juuuuust fine for themselves.

c) Neither Penthouse, nor Rick’s, nor Scores have poles on the stage. FOR REAL. There are strippers without poles! Let me say it again, because it doesn’t seem to stick: Strippers. Without. Poles.  If this still troubles you, I advise you to take a deep breath.  I’m gonna help you work through this.  Wave over a nearby stripper, hand her a $20, look at her breasts, and focus on the tingly feeling in the only pole in the room that ought to really matter to you.

I hope this improves your next NYC strip club experience — and mine.

Please pardon the mess in my bedroom and focus on the hair.

I originally started this blog to connect with other sex workers and share the things we’ve learned.  In the vernacular: the things that your momma didn’t teach you and your girlfriends don’t know.  Some of those “secrets” are unsexy, if useful (how to do an enema, working while you have your period) but some of it is pretty glamorous, like learning how to do your hair and makeup like the girls in the magazines.

In the strip club world there are two ways to do one’s hair: pin-straight, and flowing curls.  Both involve heat styling.   (Unless, in the words of the house mom from the Fancy Club, “you were born with the one and only perfect natural curl”.  I was not.)

One of the few surviving photos of my hair in its natural state.  (Photo by Dov, 2007.)  SHUT UP. We’ve all made fashion mistakes before.

The Angry Stripper has an awesome post on flat-ironing, so I don’t have to write it.  I have been flat-ironing my hair for so long that only a few friends and lovers realize it’s naturally curly.

Sometimes I use smoothing balm, sometimes I use mousse.  I love the silicone sprays (and they’re pretty much all the same) but I’m terrified of turning my hair into an oil slick.  The exception is this Rusk product I borrow from the house mom.  It has a superfine mist and works magic on winter frizz.  A few pumps and I can practically feel the ends of my hair slipping around like a shampoo commercial.

But curling my hair always eluded me until recently.  If you missed high school beauty class, here is how you, too, can have perfect curls:

1. Blow dry hair smooth. Even if your hair is naturally curly, like mine, you need to get your hair smooth.  Sure you’re going to curl it, but the hairs need to be straight in relation to each other.

I use a light mousse all over my hair, mostly on the roots for volume.  You can use a light leave-in conditioner or a heat protectant instead.  The idea is that the product protects your hair from the heat styling to come.  DO NOT USE TOO MUCH PRODUCT, or too heavy a product.  This is a mistake I made for years thinking it would help the curls stay.  It will only weigh your hair down and make it stiff, and the curls will fall out and lack bounce.

Similarly: not all hairspray is equal.  Don’t make loose curls with extra-super-hold hairspray.  It’s for static styles, like updos, and will tangle and weigh down your curls. Flexible hold only!

Some people swear by naked hair, especially for flat-iron curling.  This horrifies me, but who knows what protection that little spritz of silicone really gives you anyway?

2. Crank your curling iron all the way up. Don’t be scared.  If your curls don’t last — or you can only keep flat-iron curls in your hair — you need more heat.

3.  Section your hair and pin/tie it up. I do three horizontal layers, starting with the layer of hair at the nape and ending with the crown.

4. Begin to curl small sections of hair, working from one ear to the other. I keep the uncurled hair on one shoulder and toss the curls to the other, until all the hair has moved from one side to the other.  You may also see steam.  Be brave! It’s all part of the process.

The hairstylist at my first club curled the traditional way:

- Spritz section of hair with hairspray (optional)

- Clamp iron lightly on the TOP of the hair, near scalp

- Run iron lightly and smoothly down the length of the hair, as if straightening, until the ends are just about to disappear into the clip

- Tilt iron so that ends flip out toward the handle of the iron.  Clamp down and begin to roll the entire length of the hair UP the iron, toward the tip

- Wait for 10 count, carefully ease the iron out of the rolled hair, pin in place on head to cool

- When cooled: unpin curls, mist head with flexible hold hairspray, and run fingers through hair.

This is how most people tell you to do it.  It works, I guess, but I find the rolling-and-pinning to be tedious and near-impossible to do on myself.

The hairstylist at the Fancy Club did something I really liked:

- Spritz section of hair with hairspray (optional)

- Run iron down length of hair, as if straightening

THEN! The magic happened.

- About halfway down the hair, let ends fall toward the handle and begin to roll gently up the iron, maybe a couple of turns.

- Lift the clamp slightly — you know, that clicking, duck-beak motion you might do to ease the iron out of your finished curl — but instead of pulling out, slide the iron down a little with the curled hair on it. Now roll up and take up some more hair.  Slide down again juuuust until you have the ends, roll the rest of the way up, hold for a second or two and slip the iron out.

Did that make any sense?

It’s hard to say why it works better — but it does.  You’re basically holding the iron on the hair for the same amount of time.  You’re doing something the whole time, which is nice for the easily bored.  Because you begin in the middle, I feel like you are exposing the hair to the heat more evenly.  Curls I make this way last longer and look more even, instead of having limp middles and crunchy ends.  And they don’t need pinning.

Finish like above, with a little flexible hold hairspray, and run your fingers through your hair to break up the curls. Shine mist optional.

A big curling iron will get you instantly loose, bouncy waves, but it is essential that you curl hot enough, in small enough sections.  On me it likes to fall right out, leaving me neither straight nor curly, but looking vaguely in need of a good hair-brushing.  A small curling iron leaves more distinct and longer-lasting curls.  If you are worried about looking poodle-y, you can curl only the ends or lower half of your hair.

And that’s it for today! Happy curling!

Hi, Calico!

I know that you don’t know me or anything, but I follow you on twitter (I’m [redacted]) and have seen, and thoroughly enjoyed, your work at Kink and Intersec.  I have a girly question, and I don’t know anyone who can give me a good answer.  I’m a 26 year old female and my boyfriend is interested in anal sex.  I am looking forward to it, except that I’m a bit self-conscious about the appearance of that area.  I really like the way that women in porn have bleached the area and make it look nice and presentable.  Basically, I’m wondering how that is done and where (at home or at a salon?)  I’m totally clueless about this stuff and internet searches have not provided any satisfying results.  I am desperately hoping that you will take the time to offer some advice.  :-)

Thank you!

I get periodic readermail like this.  Not a lot. But some.

I do not answer most of my readermail because, while I appreciate it and wish I could help, I am totally stumped. Sample Q/As would go like this:

Q: Will this strip club or that strip club hire me?

A: What did the manager have for breakfast?  Are you having a good hairday?  Does Obama like the gays this week? Fuck if I know.

Q: Should I do porn?

A: Ask your mom. Wait, that freaks you out? Maybe you shouldn’t.

Q: Why am I so guilty about my submissive desires?

A: *dissolves in sobs* Hold me!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome that you guys think I should answer questions, but it’s really for the best that I don’t. I’ve made it four years in Manhattan without any firebombings — not even a malicious break-in! Let’s keep it going.

Since I am hopeless at advice, I recorded a conversation with friend and consultant Only Imagined, who had the misfortune to be on my couch at the time.  Transcript is below the break.

Read more »

I may have mentioned that I strip.

Strippers tend to hop from club to club. We suffer from the perpetual delusion that some other club is better.  I’ve worked at five different clubs in New York and at some point have hated them all.

I have many theories about this, but foremost: I think earning potential and job satisfaction are directly related.  Here, I drew you a pretty graph:

(I doubt this is unique to strip clubs.)

On the low end, there was the dive bar in Brooklyn whose only rule about stage shows was that I could not text.  On the high end: the ritzy club where I was compelled to fake tan, wear false eyelashes, and have panic attacks before every shift.

I have a love-hate relationship with stripping.  I make so much money, but it stresses me out so much.

I don’t make friends at work because no one speaks English in the dressing room.  I have to be high-maintenance girly in a way I hate, and hate funding.  I have to be extroverted and pushy with strange men, drunk men, men in packs, men in sports jerseys — types of men I usually avoid.  (Nothing personal.)  The night shift makes me unhealthy and unhappy.  I have an imperfect relationship with alcohol.  I  have class issues with both the customers and the strippers.  Hilariously, I would be happy to have sex in the champagne room, but it will never happen, and that has been divisive.

Right now I am at a lower-end club that I picked for its day shift.  I’ve averaged $300 a shift.  It pays my expenses and lets me save, but it doesn’t feel secure because I’ve had days where I left owing money.  I guess that’s what “average” means.  I also guess what I want in a club is to feel secure.

I do find the VIP payout at this club insulting.  I can’t say it’s objectively too low — I don’t think it’s wrong to do anything for a certain price — but it’s an insultingly low percentage of what the customer pays.  Since the club makes more than twice what I do on a VIP room, they’re really interested in getting me to do it.  I’m not.

All said, though, I love my day shift.  The hours cut down on heavy drinking, large parties of men, large parties of drunk men, and large parties of drunk jersey-wearing men. I sleep well, see sunlight and feel like a normal person.  I’m happy.

But I’m not making crazy stripper money.  Just normal stripper money.  Unreliably.

And I look at other clubs with big green stripper eyes and it EATS MY SOUL.

This is the conversation I have been having with myself all week, ever since my club dicked me around with a VIP client in a spectacularly nasty way on Monday.

Good Calico: You should stay for at least a solid month.  There’s no way to know if you really make money if you don’t have sufficient data.

Bad Calico: But those other girls at the Fancy Club are MAKING MONEY. RIGHT NOW.  I could be making that money if I were at that other club.

Good Calico: You could be hiding in a corner, watching thousands of dollars slip past you into the manicured hands of an army of fierce Polish fembots.  That sort of happened at your last club.  Maybe you forgot.

Bad Calico: But this time it’ll be different!  I’ll channel my inner entitlement.  I’m channeling it right now.  I’m going to get acrylic nails and hair extensions and a Chihuahua puppy to carry in my Louis Vuitton handbag and I will be SUPERSTRIPPER and men will give me ALL THE MONEY.

[Actual purse-puppy from the dressing room of the Panic Attack Club.]

Good Calico: …

Bad Calico: I mean, once I get hired and start making all that money.

Good Calico: You are never going to want those things and you will always be way too practical to buy them.  How do you think a high-pressure club is going to be different this time?

Bad Calico: I’m embarrassed to be not making that money as we speak. It’s DEMEANING.  It’s UNFEMINIST!  HOW CAN YOU STAND IN THE WAY OF MY FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT?!!  I cannot abide another second in this crappy club.

Good Calico: Leaving this club prematurely is really rash. It makes ends meet. You don’t mind showing up to work. You can’t put a price on that.

Bad Calico: I hate that I am NOT MAKING MONEY. And that makes me STUPID. And INEFFECTUAL. Which I am not, AM I, so I obviously need to be MAKING MONEY.

Good Calico: If you dash off right now, it will be awkward.  You won’t want to come back because you hate awkwardness.  You probably won’t even wait to make a story about going on vacation, and then the club will give you a hard time, and it will be super awkward and you’ll never be able to make yourself work here again.

Bad Calico: But the other club is going to be SO AWESOME with all its MONEY that I’ll never need to work here again!  I’ll be embarrassed to have worked here in the first place.  We should get in the habit of pretending it never happened.  Like, yesterday.

Good Calico: *sigh*

So basically, I’m breaking my vow to work all of February by the end of the first week: I’m taking off to audition tonight.  For shame!  The club I want to try hired me once, but you never know.  I’m half hoping they won’t take me and I can go back to my day shift in peace.

I really didn’t know what was going to come of the rape post.  I learned at some point to only blog things to which I expected people to respond positively.  This was a direct violation of the rule.

Many people were supportive: on Twitter, via email and in person. It got linked a little.  That was all nice.

Weirdly, I do feel better.  Can it be that easy?  I used to feel like being alone with it was eating me.  In its absence, I feel a little lighter.

The funniest response came today, proving that fetishists can co-opt absolutely anything.  I just can’t figure why me.  Is this a regular reader of my blog (and God, why?)  Did he Google for some likely phrase like “angry about rape”?  It just seems too coincidental.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of the Wank Letter, here is a classic example of a fake from this week’s Savage Love column (second down).

I love Dan. Sure, we have our differences of opinion, but he is a man of great wisdom and little tolerance for bullshit.  While I lack his wit, I’m going to reply in kind to the gem that landed in my inbox today.

I’m a sexually sadistic Dom.  I don’t understand why females have a problem with rape so long as the guy didn’t have an STD.  I’d like to make an extreme revenge video for adult female survivors of sexual abuse, incest and / or rape where they get to see a real rapist and sex offender punished and raped.  I’d like to find a survivor of sexual abuse, incest and / or rape with a lot of anger towards males and an extreme revenge fantasy who would allow me to be a stand-in for the male who abused her.

I raped my sister and her playmates all the time we were growing up.  I feel a lot of self-hate, self-loathing, shame and guilt.  All I feel is a result of societal values.  Intellectually I understand rape is wrong.  But on a visceral level I don’t understand why females make such a fuss about it. I’ve been in therapy all my life.  But still can’t understand why females make such a big deal over rape.

Michael

Michael, darling.  It’s good of you to get back in touch!  We had that session where you told me about your systematic childhood sexual abuse by your sisters, your aunt, and eight neighborhood women.  They liked to quote Gloria Steinem while forcing you to clean the house nude and, inexplicably, tease you with their stockinged feet.

No? Was it was your cuckolding ex-wife who ruined your life (and warped your sexuality) and now you have to see pro-dommes to get off? It’s easy to get mixed up.  You understand.

Men with fake histories are a dime a dozen in sex work.  Making up a story I have to play along with, whether you think I believe it or not, is a cheap way to feel in control of  a vulnerable situation.  Fake fetish-genesis stories are even more common (”She knew exactly what she was doing to me while I watched her through the window …”).  Much easier to be a victim than a pervert.  It always annoyed me, but as long as I didn’t feel outright mocked, I was willing to allow people the crutch they felt they needed.

This, though, this is another level. You want to get your rocks off by provoking someone who is so angry, so broken, she’s practically forced to deliver the sexual “punishment” you crave so much. I assume this is supposed to be empowering and cathartic the way that force-feminizing a man and “treating him like a whore” is supposed to be empowering and cathartic.  In other words, it’s not.

Side note: as someone who’s spent a tremendous amount of time, effort and heartbreak trying to come to peace with her own submissive desires, I just gotta say … you are one lazy, contemptible motherfucker.  Maybe there’s a genuine desire to suffer under your misogynistic little fantasy.  Maybe there’s not.  But until you sort it out and start regarding women — your potential partners included — as equals and people, you’ll never know.

Happy trolling!

[Looking back at my drafts has reminded me how much stripping sucked for me from the very beginning.  I wrote this after my first weekend at my first club. I usually describe that weekend as the "one glorious weekend" -- where I'd never stripped before and banked like mad -- but as I recall, it wasn't that glorious.  It involved me breaking down in tears in the dressing room, blisters on my feet, and general misery.]

Is it worth it? I don’t know yet. It’s worth it if it ceases to bother me, and it’s not if it doesn’t.

It’s just… shitfuckhell. I forgot how big and scary and cold the world is.

I went back to my boyfriend’s place and I told him I was thinking of quitting pro-domming. The money was so good, I said. Crazy. Unbelievable.

I had never considered leaving pro-domming before, and it was a scary and wonderful concept. I thought about the exhilaration of a professional session: the equipment, the time, the focus, all the things money can make possible. Then I thought about taking back sex for me and me alone.  I wanted that so much I could barely breathe.

Of course, I couldn’t quit sex work, but stripping was a different prison.

Yours could be, I said to my boyfriend, the only penis I ever have to see again.

Would you like that? he asked.

Maybe, I replied. Distantly we were both aware that I would want to fuck other people, but I had burnt out on opportunity. It sounded safe. I wanted safe. Maybe for a little while.

[The next week, the economy crashed. Q.E.D.]