CALICO LANE

From Dear Coke Talk, who may singlehandedly redeem the advice column genre:

I’m gonna go ahead and call this situation the “whore’s fallacy.” It’s that classic false dichotomy between love or money that sex workers insist upon whining about, and it’s total bullshit.

You don’t have to choose between love or money. You can have both.

All you need is the emotional intelligence to engage in sex work safely and thoughtfully, the emotional integrity to choose a boyfriend who is strong enough handle it, and the emotional honesty to be open with him about what you do.

SING IT SISTER!

She says it here.

I wrote this back in September in the long wake of my breakup with the Lawyer.  It’s dated, but I think it sums up why I wasn’t blogging, and why I’m not teaching right now.

I also think it’s topical because Maymay, a good friend and a creator and champion of sexuality unconference KinkForAll, has come under attack by “Citizens Against Trafficking”’s Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes . It’s an ugly mess, but it’s a sign if I ever saw one that he’s doing something right.

Tonight’s post comes to you only because I was repainting my old room white. I put on two coats of primer, and I’m just one coat of eggshell away from getting the security deposit back.

The problem is that at 5′5″ I can just barely get the roller to bump the ceiling. The last time I painted the damn thing it took two days and I did have help. This time I finished alone with blisters on my hands, surrounded by the inch of tangerine paint just out of reach. Far from feeling accomplished, I wanted to sit down on the floor and cry.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about my new apartment with my roommates. It’s unreal: 14-foot ceilings, a private patio. I’ve spent a few hours this week watching the sunlight stream in through my gorgeous window, and believed fiercely that this is a place I could settle, have guests, have a lover.

But acknowledging how much I want that makes me feel like a fucking mess. I keep telling myself that expressing need does not make you needy, and asking for help does not make you helpless. I don’t follow either of these pieces of advice. But maybe someday I will, and in the meantime I do believe them.

Every day for the last week my phone has brought up the reminder to post about KinkForAll and I have ignored it. I don’t want to get up in front of a room and talk. Some educators do skills, but I’m all theory, and in this mood I’m not much of a poster child for my new world order.

I know I should go. Even if it’s not a lot, it’s the least I can do. This seems to be a common belief among bloggers — that what we do on the Internet has a ripple effect, and helps create the world we want to live in. I want that, even when phrases like “consciousness-raising” and “creating safe spaces” and “starting conversations” ring really fucking flat. So often I feel like we are just patting ourselves on the back for vocalizing our discontent. Changing things is hard, even when the alternative is good behavior and quiet despair.

Basically… tonight I don’t have anybody to paint the tops of my walls, and I’m sad.

Kitty, in response to a movie she watched, wrote this post for me.

…the idea that sex workers cannot love/have intimate relationships because of their personal issues, generally implied to have been brought about by work. Let me share what has been affected by my work-

-I suspect my lovers tend to consider me the girl you have fun kinky sex with, but not someone you get emotionally attached to, because I’m a sex worker (and also polyamorous, but that’s another blog).

Hmm. I think this is true for me, although not necessarily because I’m a sex worker.  There are so many reasons I am “not someone you get emotionally attached to”, I couldn’t even try to isolate one.

-sometimes I get selfish about what I want sexually because my work is about focusing on other people getting off… or sometimes I don’t want sex at all because I’m starved for other intimacies.

-sometimes work gets me crazy turned on and I want a lot more sex! Sometimes I want a followup session to my work sessions.

It’s work, yo, but it’s also sex.

-often I want more head petting and affection. I’ve found myself also drawn a lot more to the submissive play I do with G- I think the catharsis is helpful, somehow.

-I end up needing to date people who are happy to hear about other relationships, otherwise, I can’t bitch about work!

They’re work relationships, but they’re still relationships.

-I’ve found I enjoy keeping a few types of kinky play just between me and my lovers, not with clients, so there are some “special”, “just us” stuff.

I don’t tend to reserve activities — in fact, I usually seek out the same activities through sex work that I seek with my lovers — but it is a common way to keep boundaries. (For a more nuanced discussion of boundaries in porn, I recommend this excellent interview with Lorelei Lee.)

While I have never had sex with a man on camera, I dislike all my reasons (mostly, the objections of my male partners) not to have sex with men on camera. Sample conversation from last time I was in San Francisco:

Lochai: You don’t do boy/girl, right? Why not?

Me, half-jokingly: Because no one will ever love me.

Him: So don’t!

Me: That is not what I was hoping you would say.

-I’ve more vocal in bed about what I like and don’t like, and negotiate better in general- if I’m not having my needs acknowledged, I expect to at least be getting paid.

Oh, yes. I think I often unfairly call this selfishness in myself, because it takes my partners aback. But I think it is SO HOT and so necessary when people — especially women — give it to me! If we don’t expect women to be vocal, this causes no end of problems, not least the passive construction of consent. Whatever happened to active desire? Let’s change this.

That’s some of it. I’m sure there’s more, maybe I’ll add to it as I go along. But no, being a sex worker doesn’t mean you have to be less emotionally intimate with lovers. Maybe it does if you want monogamous partnership. Not been my experience though! We’re people, not exclusively fantasy objects, and as such we have our own needs and lives. Why wouldn’t we just due to our jobs?

Huzzah, etc.

I tried to write this article about a year ago, but didn’t post because I got bogged down in defensiveness. Sex work has very few (if any) truly unique evils. It is a little microcosm that fosters and concentrates what is icky about sexuality and gender in the world at large. I’m OK with any changes that awareness might bring me. It’s not “damage”; it’s knowledge, and ignorance couldn’t be farther from bliss.

Sex workers, would you add anything to this list? How has sex work changed you?