CALICO LANE

I think the economy is hitting strip clubs, because the club I tried last night isn’t even auditioning.  Too many girls, they told me, too few customers.

Luckily for me, I still have a job at my strip club. I’m just unhappy and bored.   I know how decadent it is to job-hop because I’m bored.  But I’m an independent contractor with no benefits, no job security, and no guaranteed salary except in the negative.

Of course I think my club is doing worse.  We all do.  But stripping is irregular, and I haven’t worked regularly or long enough, so I couldn’t crunch my numbers and tell you for sure.  I worked one glorious $2k+ weekend before the economy crashed. I’ve had that weekend since, but for that to happen to a guileless never-before stripper tells me times were jollier then.

I’ve also had a lot of bad nights.  A bad night involves paying the club for the privilege of dolling up, dancing topless on stage, sitting in men’s laps, getting groped, and spending eight to twelve hours in lockdown with a bunch of big-titted, deeply tanned, fake-eyelashed women who don’t deign to speak English unless I’m paying them.

If you can’t tell, I soured on stripping really fast.  That’s why I haven’t been talking about it much.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with stripping, but talking about how wrong it is (for me, for now) certainly gives that impression.

And I am worried about work.  When I don’t make money, I can get really down.  I say it’s a game of averages; but what our managers and our veteran strippers say is that there’s always money to be made, if only you are smart, persistent and pretty enough.  I hate that perspective, as much as I can’t discredit it.  Putting the blame on yourself for the vagaries of the industry is a great way to drive yourself mad.  I wrote about it last year:

I am well acquainted with the notion of self-worth. In sex work you quickly decide that what you are worth, and what your sexual services are worth on the market, are two entirely separate concepts. The former, unalterable, innate; the latter, measurable, but yours to control or abolish. You decide if, and when, and to who, and for what price, you choose to sell.

On such a night these exactitudes give way to generalities. You are selling and no one’s buying. Value requires two symbiotic creatures: an offer, and a sale. “Without set value” is not the same as “worthless”. But on still late nights, the two snuggle together conspiratorially. They share a drink, and invite you to have one too, and by eleven or twelve things are fuzzy enough that you’ll be damned if you can tell the difference.

When evenings drag closed, I wonder. If I were only thinner, prettier, younger, more talented, would I be making money? If my hair were straight or blonde or longer, would I be getting picked? If my nails were red instead of bare, if I wore eyeshadow and lined my lips, if I shaved my legs with the regularity of a bedtime prayer, would things be good again?

I give myself pep talks on bad nights.  I have to approach ten more people and then I can get more coffee from the dressing room; I can only sit if I’m sitting on someone’s lap; if I get five dances this hour, I can sit down and finish my drink, instead of ditching it in the bathroom.  Usually it ends in blisters and a rotten mood.  I’m unsure about the wisdom or success of these strategies.  If I’m resorting to them, the odds are already stacked against me.

I really hope I can come back to stripping at another club and another time.  I’d like one with a pole where I can learn to dance, and where people actually tip on stage.  I could have a much less ambivalent experience.  Stripping through college now is smart, because this is no time to be looking for a real career; but tough, because I need money for college at a time when everyone desperately needs money.

I just hope people still need strippers.

I haven’t worked since Dark Odyssey. Every morning this week, I’ve applied self-tanner carefully with rubber gloves, only to end up scrubbing at the linear smudges that just won’t go away. It wouldn’t keep me away from work at my usual club, but I want to try out at a new club this month, and I hate to think of being turned away unable to explain how these aren’t permanent scars.

I don’t feel guilt this time. (To say I do not feel guilt is to say that my mother was not Jewish, or that I do not breathe; but I don’t feel much.) My tuition check is in the mail; that is all I care about. I have given up on being superhuman. Savings are for grown-ups. No one besides a sex worker can afford private universities. I would marvel at how the other students do it, but that would be ingenuous; I know. Normal graduates emerge blinking into the working-world Oz and are clobbered by a Midwestern house’s-worth of personal debt.

Still yesterday I tried to do the math, dividing the missed earnings by how many times I had gotten off under his cane or in my bed. (At night, in the morning, at 4am chewing the pillow for an endless hour.) How much per orgasm? $50, $100? $300 on a busy day? It hurt my head. I say I have never paid for sex but in my own way, I do. When I play like this I am renting myself out. Buying back my timeshare.

Brick buildings aren’t responsive to these glimmers of spring. My apartment is cold, so cold, it takes ten hours for bread to pudge its way up out of the bowl. When I punch it back down, the air doesn’t whoosh: it gurgles. I wonder what baking sourdough will be like in the summer. In warmth yeast breeds, eats and drools like the mad mindless things they are. I adore them, the lascivious little creatures.

As I sit forlornly in class I think about my bread on the countertop rising without me. Right about this time it’s achieving its climax so cruelly delayed in the fridge, slopping over the edges of the pans. Dough doesn’t do that Tantra stuff. Fucking inconsiderate if you ask me. Nothing to do but reform, re-rise, repeat.

When I get out of class I swing onto Fifth Ave just to delight in geography. East to my right, west to my left; I’m tightrope-walking up the seam of the city in the cold, cold sunlight. My fingers are numb but under my coat, my breasts are slick with sweat. I am ready for this spring. I feel like I might burst, without an outlet, like a loaf in the oven.

Last night I went to see Cinekink’s screening of Graphic Sexual Horror, the Insex documentary by Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon. If you get the chance to see it, jump! It was well-done. It left me feeling both profoundly conflicted and aroused: a feeling, after several years of shooting with PD, with which I am familiar.

I’ve worked on both his current softer sites, Hardtied and Infernal Restraints. I never worked for Insex. The documentary took its name from the disclaimer on the site’s splash page: WARNING! GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR.

I did follow Insex avidly, from discovering it through its close. I had never seen anything like it. It was bizarre and terrifying and revolting and absolutely riveting.

I didn’t masturbate to it. I mean, it didn’t look like sex. I don’t know if I could have honestly told you that it turned me on.

Everyone comes to bondage porn for different reasons, but 912 still has the best story. When I met 912, she was PD’s girlfriend and videographer. I was more than a little scared of her and the screaming fights I seemed to provoke between her and PD. I was certain she’d walk in during one of PD’s “inspirational” moments with me in the barn, fling her HD camera to the ground, and rip off my head with her bare hands.

Over breadsticks at some dim and greasy Pizza Hut, I asked 912 how she got into modeling. In the film, she tells that story. She’d contacted Insex asking for a private session with PD. Naturally, she was confused and shocked when, after her shoot, they cut her a check! I had never heard such an innocent confession of desire. I do not understand your jealousy, I thought, but … that? I understand that.

I wrote Insex, too. How could I not? And I was emailing with Cyd about modeling at the time that their payment processors pulled out and the site shut down.

I wonder sometimes how I would have turned out if I had shot for Insex. I know I would have done a great many things. Maybe if I had done those things, it would have broken me — but now I never will.

Money was the theme running throughout the documentary. Can consent really exist where there is money, and so much of it? Where does responsibility lie? Many of the girls had drug habits to support. PD dated and played with his models and even, according to some, made work contingent on it. If he respected safewords, he has interesting interpretations of boundaries. Money made Insex lavish, careless, unprofessional and greedy; and then when the money was gone, they had to follow.

I usually embrace the money-and-consent problem. I like the feeling of having endured. Coerce me, baby! I want permission! Until I sort out my issues and get New Age-y with my desires, the money is a great excuse to have fun.

Of course, when people ask me why I don’t do vanilla porn, I tell them I don’t just do porn for the money. I want to do porn that interests me. I love sex; but this, this was irresistible. Maybe the people who ask me that question have never wanted something that much.

For better or worse, the old cast and crew of Insex populate the porn world I know. Matt Williams, Cyd, Angelene, Lorelei Lee — all familiar faces. It was fun to see them all interviewed after years of post-Insex gossip. Apparently, Claire Adams has always been possessed of that unearthly composure. And I was perversely cheered to see a young Princess Donna, threatened with a cattle prod, interrupt a live feed to hiss, “That is a hard limit!” Oh, Princess, how times have changed.

One of PD’s employees was there with his girlfriend. When I left I hugged him and said, “I’ll give you guys a call when I grow the balls again.”

I always need it. It’s just a matter of time.

A couple months ago I recorded a guest spot on a friend’s Human Sexuality lecture.

She brought up an interesting point: It is just as taboo to talk about money as it is about sex. (Which is why I think it’s great fun to bring money into your sex — but that’s another story.)

Whatever I make, it’s at once too little and too much. Too much to feel comfortable discussing, and never enough to justify it.

Girl: My last guy proposed marriage but didn’t tip. Didn’t he have a good time?

Me: Makes sense to me. You pay your whore; you don’t tip your wife.

Daytime jobs in sex work are a rarity. When I have mine, I love it.

I can’t understand why people despise their “9 to 5″s. Maybe they hate their suits, their ties, their corporate constraints or their Dilbert-esque lives. My Monday to Friday schedule was fabulous. I could plan more than a week ahead. I could join the rest of the world in dating and drinking. I saw sunlight in the mornings and elbowed blithely through the commuter rush to get home. I never felt (on the account of my schedule, at least) like I was living an underworld life.

But schedules come and go. So the second night in a row last week found me here, on my laptop, cuddling my Pinkberry frozen yogurt like a life preserver.

Around six or seven a worknight begins in earnest, and I feel disconnected. Not lonely, precisely; there are eight of us before clients, and the after-work time bustles. But Out There I know everyone’s painting the town or snug in their living rooms, and I’m locked away from it all.

The halls fill up: girls shimmying from room to room, trailing rope and nipple clamps and covering their bare breasts. It’s a madhouse overflowing with our flung lingerie and trashy magazines. The men passing from the elevator duck their heads as if the laughter might trail them out the door.

Around ten it quiets, and I start to cruise the fridge compulsively. Nights, I eat a lot. Whether I’m hungry, bored or stressed I can never tell. It’s the smoker’s time of night — eleven, eleven-thirty. The doors don’t close right, and we all start to sink into a greyish secondhand haze.

An hour. No calls. No one to meet.

I am well acquainted with the notion of self-worth. In sex work you quickly decide that what you are worth, and what your sexual services are worth on the market, are two entirely separate concepts. The former, unalterable, innate; the latter, measurable, but yours to control or abolish. You decide if, and when, and to who, and for what price, you choose to sell.

On such a night these exactitudes give way to generalities. You are selling and no one’s buying. Value requires two symbiotic creatures: an offer, and a sale. “Without set value” is not the same as “worthless”. But on still late nights, the two snuggle together conspiratorially. They share a drink, and invite you to have one too, and by eleven or twelve things are fuzzy enough that you’ll be damned if you can tell the difference.

When evenings drag closed, I wonder. If I were only thinner, prettier, younger, more talented, would I be making money? If my hair were straight or blonde or longer, would I be getting picked? If my nails were red instead of bare, if I wore eyeshadow and lined my lips, if I shaved my legs with the regularity of a bedtime prayer, would things be good again?

Chelsea Girl has written eloquently about the enchantments, the rituals, the highs and lows of stripping. I too go through stages of disenchantment (and giddy highs of good fortune) and most of the time, they pass.

The subway runs slower past midnight. I know I won’t be able to sleep. I’m too newly peeled from my stockings, buzzed on the smoke and shadows and muffled yelps of this place I work. I’ll make a call, and catch a different train, one headed away from home.

At dinner on Saturday, a friend asked me if I would pay for sex. I said, Yes, of course! I’m amazed, and dismayed, that I never have.

We posited that intrinsic difficulty prevented me. The research, the selection, the call, the appointment, the wait, the interview, the paying, the shuffling between rooms, more waiting, the undressing. Somewhere in there my libido would quail, and I would flee in cowardice.

Perhaps I had never wanted it badly enough. To that I said: Oh no, oh God, I have. The depth and depravity of my want could swallow small middle-American towns. I merely sought out other outlets.

Now, I am here to wonder why paying $200 seemed like a less viable plan than the various stupid, desperate, unsafe, ill-advised, or unsatisfactory choices I’ve consummated over the past few years. I assure you, much of the time, it would have been better to pay.

Why have I not paid? Am I just a pussy and a hypocrite? Here are a few of my theories.

1. My primary sexual orientation is men. The only providers available are women.

   While there might be male sex workers I could hire, I do not know where to find them. There’s no TER or MaxFisch, no client review boards. I’d have to be as worried about getting beaten up and raped as if I were selling it. (Now that’s a shocking concept for all the people who ask me, “Aren’t you scared you’ll get attacked?” Assault isn’t about selling sex — hell, I could be selling real estate. It’s about violence and isolation.)

2. There is little social precedent for women buying sex.

   I really don’t know how to go about it. Just as a man would, I know — but in no other aspect of my life do I seek to do something “just like a man”. Clients are Johns. Clients are Marks. Alans, not Alenas. The client role feels heavily gendered, and not in a hot transgressive way.

3. Female providers are accustomed to serving men. I worry that were I to buy from a woman, I would discomfit her.

   In a dungeon she wouldn’t know the level of sexual interaction I expect from her. I even fear she might be insulted or confused if I didn’t want any — i.e., as if she were a stopgap fetish fulfilment when I really wanted a man. (Actually I think my strap-on serves as fetish fulfilment for some men who want men, and it’s not insulting, just bemusing — but still. I worry.)

   How would she feel about penetrating me with a toy? Making me come with a vibrator? How would I feel? It’s a bit legally sketchy.

4. I have enjoyed an outlet in video experiences, where I picked my jobs and played with experienced tops.

   See also #1. Competence and experience is important to me. With no review board, I might have to appear naked on the Internet to get my experience, but at least I know what they do and that they’re safe. And I kind of get off on the “you have to do it for the site, whether you like it or not” aspect.

   On the plus side, those people pay me.

5. I am hung up on reciprocity.

   This is one of my least favorite admissions. Many people say “I couldn’t pay a whore: I need to know she’s enjoying it!” I say: You’re paying her, that’s what she enjoys. At least this way you don’t have to wonder if she’s coming. You know she likes the money!

   Additionally, I find it frustrating when I hear it from clients. “It’s all about you, Mistress. I want this to be about your pleasure.” It is always my “pleasure” to do it — or I wouldn’t do it. I know you want maximum value for your fantasy, and you think my orgasm would be proof, but it’s not for sale. I am not going to get off in session — I’m just not. Leave my intent alone and accept your experience at face value. It’s better for us both.

   As a client, I think I’d break this rule. Selfishly, I must want to be wanted. Otherwise I wouldn’t care so much if my provider’s sexual orientation matched mine. I don’t like that desire: having sex for affirmation is more than vaguely creepy. I’d rather fuck for orgasms, thanks! Paid sex is not a place to look for affirmation.

6. My kinks are not the sort of thing I could pay for.

   My second least favorite hypothesis, below only #5. Sounds snobby. Like all of you enjoying your whores have proletarian tastes, but my rarefied desires require morsels that can only be obtained from the tropics at great trouble and expense? Yeah, bullshit. I ain’t that special.

   As a submissive, I would want to be the object of a partner’s sadism. In other words, to be hurt because it gets my partner off. Again, there’s proof-of-wanting in it — ugh — but there’s also a suspiciously martyr-like thread of “it’s not about me”. Double ugh!

   As a provider I rail against these concepts. They are fantasy. Wanting them honestly and earnestly doesn’t make them buyable. Sadism and desire exist only nebulously, as intent, not the provable meat-world realm of nouns and verbs that we can purchase.
   
   How to get around this? I suspect I could tell my provider exactly how to act, and try to focus on my experience, rather than dwelling like an obnoxious prat on her intent. (See the client advice in #4, above.) Whoring is the reality TV of sex. While it’s a contrived situation, the experiences can be real. When turned on we’re all easy to roll. Besides — pain is great at bringing immediacy to a fantasy.

   Alternately, I could go for the “I’m so pathetic, you’re only paying attention because I’m paying you” shtick. But it’s not really my thing.

7. I’ve been lucky enough to get mine for free.

   Maybe I am privileged. Maybe it’s because of my irresistable personality. Maybe because of my socialization as a woman to “give” and be “fluid”, I’ve been willing to compromise and perform more than those who have chosen to pay. Who knows? Maybe I’m not actually having more sex than other people. Certainly the choice to pay for sex does not correlate with partners and their quality, or the lack thereof.

   But my partners do take the edge off. These days, if I find myself tying myself up in the covers and attempting to hump the subway bench dividers, I just make a call and get on the train.

I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask in the questioning process: why do you have sex (or “non-sex” kink)? I don’t know if there are good reasons and bad reasons to have sex, but some are better recommendations to a provider than others. (Romantic connection = not so good. Getting off = great!)

Someday I would like to pay. And yes, I want it to be a man, and a top. If the submissive is really in control, that’s me you’ll see, gleefully fucking the paradigm up the ass with my big rubber femdom cock.

So you want to see a sex worker, and you’re worried about etiquette?

None of my advice has changed in the year since I wrote this, so I think it’s pretty solid.

Tip.

As with any service profession, I think 15-20% is standard for good service. If you plan to be a regular, tipping will endear you. If you see other girls who permit grabbiness, pushiness or other disrespectful behavior, tipping may excuse you. (Though you’ll never tip me, because I’ll throw you out of your session.)

You are never under any obligation or expectation to tip. If you ask for what you want and are satisfied with what I offer, you’ll get an outstanding session for list price, every time. Tipping’s not necessary.

What does tipping do for you, then? It makes you more memorable to me, and the session more rewarding. Since I do not expect anything in the way of tips, they tend to go into the fluff and fun portion of my budget. Your $20 (or $60, or $100) means that when I treat myself to a meal I might’ve skipped or an indulgent cab ride home, you (and your naked body) will cross my mind appreciatively. And if you plan to be a regular, you may get that extra 20% of enthusiasm next time.

In short: even a little is always worth it.

Ask for what you want.

I think this applies in all areas of life, but especially in sex work. If you are too shy, too repressed, or otherwise unwilling to ask for what you want, you will be disappointed when you don’t get it. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your provider will either suss out your darkest desire, or give you a satisfactory substitute — but don’t count on it. We are not mind readers. We also don’t take kindly to the implication that we’re bad providers if we don’t offer extra (or different) services beyond the contracted. Failure to communicate means an unsatisfactory session for you, and a frustrating one for us.

The guys who get the best sessions from me go so far as to bring letters describing their kinks. I really admire how forthright some of them can be.

Take what you like, and leave the rest.

So, you fancy over-the-knee spanking. When you see me, that’s all you get, in all the variations you like and none of the ones that horrify you. So why insult the cross on the wall, scoff at the toys hanging by the door, and act squeamish about the services I offer to other clients? I know you probably have trouble accepting your kink — lots of people do — but villifying others won’t legitimize yours. Stop voting Republican already! If all my clients thought like you, I’d be out of a job, which isn’t really what you want.

Respect your provider.

This is a large category, but I will try to pick out a few points.

First: the stereotypes. When you see me, you are booking with a sweet, safety-conscious, intelligent professional. Stupid and drug-addled is not a role I play, so if you treat me that way, I will throw you out.

I understand you’ve encountered many stereotypes about sex workers. We have youth, inexperience, stupidity, drug problems, low self-esteem, poor education, and precarious lives. However, I possess none of these (besides the youth, which is quite apparent when you choose to see me). If you can’t get over your prejudices and this bothers you, don’t see me. You’ll only find me disgusting, and my resentment aside, you’ll have an unsatisfying session.

Perhaps you just don’t believe that someone as good as I appear would voluntarily indulge in the kinks for which you condemn yourself. To you, I say: there are thousands of professional doms in the country, some of them published authors and accomplished professionals in other, more “legitimate” fields. Find one whose sanity, competence and willingness pleases you.

Also, therapy.

Don’t haggle.

Don’t bitch about the price of a session. If it’s too expensive, don’t buy it, or go elsewhere. Pleading for more time, more services, or more intimacy is rude and insulting. You don’t go to an upscale restaurant to complain about portion size and the waitress’s neckline; you go to the dive bar down the street instead.

Do not, under any circumstances, mutter as you leave that your money will just go to buy me more crack for my abusive boyfriend.

Be clean.

It sounds obvious, but… shower. Seriously. I do not care what weight you are, what color, what religion, or how many nipples or testicles you have. (Yes, it varies.) I care if you smell. Cologne is unpleasant, too.

On the other hand, if you want something up your ass, you don’t necessarily need to give yourself an enema. (Let me! Let me! I mean…) Let your comfort level be the arbiter.

Play safe.

Allow your provider any safety measures she wants: gloves, condoms, towels, papers, sheets. Don’t ever delude yourself that money means your comfort comes before our safety. Don’t take offense and protest that you’re “clean”. It’s a simple syllogism: if you have to tell us, you can’t prove it, and we’d rather not worry anyway.

We always appreciate when you offer to help clean up. Especially if you come on the floor. Ick. Don’t do that.

Accept the “no”.

Sex workers have a grand history of offering illegal (and thus unspoken/implied) services. I do not. You, the client, never know this for sure. Believe it or not, I don’t mind (that much) if you ask me for something illegal: a handjob, blowjob, sex, whatever. I will tell you no politely and firmly.

The proper response is to accept the “no”.

Improper responses include:
“But you made me so turned on, you have to take care of it!”
“Please, I’ll do anything you want!”
“Do you really think I’m a cop?”
“I know you want to; I can tell I turn you on.”
“Who’s going to know but you and me?”
“The other girls do it.”
“I’ll tip you ($xx).”

At first all of these arguments puzzle a sex worker, who is after all just a well-meaning person who hates to refuse a request. But trust me, after a couple weeks we have smart comebacks for all of them. We never feel the slightest obligation.

Do not, under any circumstances, try to physically force your provider into doing something she has refused. Don’t pull down her panties. Don’t try to slide her bra straps off her shoulders. Don’t try to fondle her, hold her down, grab her, hump her, or pull her hand onto your penis. That is assault; you shouldn’t count on the sex-work stigma to separate your provider from the protection of the police. The best you can hope for is a knee to the testicles and a swift end to the session.

Respect your provider’s privacy.

Follow her instructions — manner of contacting her, and when, where and how to arrive and leave. Not only do these procedures ensure you a quiet, confidential and unhurried experience, but they ensure her safety and peace of mind.

Remember, nothing “earns” you special treatment: not repeat visits, not extravagant tipping, not gifts or protestations of affection. She did not promise you anything, and she owes you nothing. If she wants you to have her personal phone or her home address, she will give it to you. If she offers outcall, dinner dates, or shopping excursions, she will tell you about them.

Pressuring a provider to offer these services will usually be unsuccessful, and is always rude. Hire someone else.

or, Why Kink Should Have Me On Salary.

Mona left a comment on a previous post of mine, The Internet Is For (Sharing) Porn. My reply got lengthy, so rather than reply in comments, I wanted to post it here.

Mona writes:

Calico,

The stuff on kink.com disturbs me to no end. I understand that sex work need not always be grounded in abuse or desperation, but can rather be a conscious life-style choice; however, there are gray areas of every shade in between.

I stumbled over your blog when I was researching exactly these gray areas. Now your scenes were not abusive, you clearly state so in the blog. On the other hand, a simple pat on the back of the head can be very demeaning and, in a sexual context, therefore abuse.

I cannot imagine that the short interview in the trailer was the whole negotiation for the heavy stuff you did. With whom did you negotiate? Only with the dom, director, or with both? Did one of the parties reject a proposal of the other parties? How detailed were these heavy scenes negotiated? Any surprises left open? Any negotiations between cuts? While you were tied up?

Hi Mona,

I hope my blog helps you clear up some of those “grey areas” in sex work. I assume you mean where sex work is not a choice made with free will. I’m afraid I’m not in one of those situations, and couldn’t tell you anything about trafficking or coercion I haven’t heard secondhand or read from a book. I’ve never been abused or desperate. To my coworkers and I, sex work isn’t a “life-style choice”; it’s just another job. We picked it for its benefits and if we leave, we try to give two week’s notice.

Asking me about sex workers in abusive situations … you might as well ask me about hate crime, or child labor. I am concerned about it, but I don’t have personal experience. I suggest asking the lovely people at the New York Sex Worker Project. Trafficking is horrid, not because it’s sex work, but because it’s immoral to force disadvantaged people to do things against their will.

No one talked me into porn. There are many prettier, curvier and more nubile women than me trying to get into it! Without exception, I have solicited my work. I’ve usually taken time off a full-time job to shoot it.

But back to the topic at hand. You know my scenes were not abusive, so perhaps I can elucidate without belaboring.

Often when people question that consensuality of BDSM, they’re expressing disbelief that anyone could like and ask for it. I say unto you: tastes vary. I have been doing sex work for about three years now and I have gotten unguarded glimpses into hundreds of bedrooms across the world. Sex does not look like you think it does. Deviance is a cultural creation. Whatever evokes a strong feeling is bound to be someone’s heated fantasy. The odd, the whimsical, the offbeat and the bizarre are all to someone wildly erotic. Of course I used to think I was strange, but now I realize that even if I were not one of thousands with similar tastes, I’d still have a healthy sexuality.

Likewise, when people hear “negotiation” used in BDSM, they assume it’s a cut-throat bargaining process, where one party tries to trick the unwilling into sordid and objectionable deeds. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Keep in mind, I picked these companies to work with because their work represents the sort of sex I enjoy! I’m eager to do everything they’ll let me, and some they can’t show on camera. “Negotiation” is a conversation about the technicalities. You ate breakfast, would you like a snack or a drink before makeup? What size ball gag can we comfortably use? Do your elbows touch? Would you rather leave your nipple piercings in, or take them out? We’ll chat about our respective likes and dislikes. Perhaps we’ll lay out the toys while we discuss the different ties and scenarios.

When I’m eager and willing, there’s nothing they could want that I’m not happy to give. (Conversely, if I weren’t truly happy to give it, they wouldn’t want it of me.) It would be useless, nay, silly to trick or surprise me. The sorts of things they ask when I’m tied are “Are you all right?” “Five more minutes?” “Can you feel your hands?” BDSM isn’t coercive or evil. It’s just meant to look that way on film because we find that sort of role-play hot.

I can stop the action or walk out at any time. But I went to all this trouble to get paid for fantastic sex — why would I want to be anywhere else? When I had a cold once and couldn’t breathe, I used my safeword, and my top jumped to without hesitation. All the rest of the apparent suffering is what I love to hate.

In short, what you see on Kink is a fantasy presentation.

I hope that helps answer your questions, Mona.

all the best,

Calico

A client got me an Express gift card today. (Thanks, doll!)

“Does this mean I’m a real dominatrix now?” I quipped to the girls.

I have received significant tips before (indeed, I did today — and thank you, too). But the gift? That was new! Stockings and panties are nice, but they’re a little like bringing wine to the party expecting to drink half.

In the end a gift certificate was the best thing he could’ve given me. Despite my best attempts at hedonism, I don’t really spend tips. I save my money. Neurotically. There might be something expensive in the future — classes, next year’s rent, acts of God, future therapy. And then, what will everyone say? If you’d only had a regular job…

Reader, I went directly to Express and spent it.

It felt so good.

(Disclaimer: I have nothing against China. Or Bitchy Jones. Colloquially, China is where one ends up when one digs a very deep hole.)

We’re past butterflies and tornados, in my land of kinky pseudo-sociology. Here in New York I fuck a guy in the ass for $200, and in China, a submissive man turns into a sissymaid with a penchant for pussy worship.

I have never been to China, so it could be even worse than I think. Maybe they’re into “full toilet” (or purple showers, or teal, or whatever the color of the week is) and I ought to start repenting before we’re all overrun by bodily fluids.

Today, God help me, we talk about how the pro-doms might not actually be ruining BDSM.

I take such complaints broadly, as “what’s wrong with sexual culture and commercialism”. (I have to — or my ears would shrivel.) The narrowest I’d take it is “what’s wrong with sex work”. (And if you think pro domination isn’t sex work, you can go shove it.)

My friends were concerned for me when I began doing porn. When you do things on film that you wouldn’t normally, they asked, don’t you worry that you’ll be held responsible for it?

And I probably said, Nope! If someone wants to sleep with me they’d better be prepared to ask what I like, and ask nicely.

Most people aren’t worried about how porn hurts the porn star. They’re worried about how porn hurts all the women whose partners watch it. If I can demand consideration and respect — the woman in that video, doing those acts — how much truer must that be for all the other women whose partners watch that video?

But when it comes to selling service topping, whose effects must be less widespread, I’m flabbergasted about the protest. If men aren’t mad that I’m charging for it (like such a service was ever available for free), women are mad that I’m destroying femdom with my pandering ways.

I was still under the impression we were moaning about pornography and prostitution and Sex In The City, misrepresenting our sexuality and appropriating our pleasure. Is that done? Have we moved on now? It’s all about the kink?

The criticism: I’ve messed up your partners. I’ve helped the people (the pornographers, or the advertisers, or the pop-culture-mongerers) who train our youth. I made all the people you want to fuck come out wrong. Like it’s a fucking conspiracy — like everyone started out good, and ended up ruined by deliberate agency.

I am not fucking it up for you. People are fucking it up for themselves by being too dumb. I can tell you exactly what I teach my clients, and it’s not kinky in the least. They have to ask specifically for what they want; they only get it when they pay for it; and they can pay for it from one person — me.

Whyever would I want paying clients to look to other women for sexual satisfaction?

But when a man says “I paid a woman to tell me this (bought a porn/saw an ad online), and so naturally I want it from all people everywhere all the time for free,” we still come with pitchforks and torches for the sex worker.

I understand that the world is confusing, whatever one’s gender, and society’s messages about sex are mixed. But if it were impossible to sort this shit out, we’d be spared this discussion.

I dislike this discussion. My sexuality is a happy place filled with (whipping posts in) fields of sunshine and flowers, and I don’t enjoy feeling cripplingly guilty. I have off-duty kinky sex, too. Except not, when my amorous endeavors create brown-nosed Chinese sissymaids. Mistress Frankenstein and the monster doesn’t do it for me.

There’s good sex. That’s what we’re all trying to have.

Then there’s bad sex. Not unsatisfactory (’cause God knows, no one got up in arms when I was having crappy sex) but politically wrong to have. I must keep high standards, especially as a woman: engaging in only the acts I feel moved to engage in, at the time I choose to engage in them, with an inspiring and compliant partner, and certainly never for monetary gain. Anything less is criminal.

If you go by this recent study, we’ve got a lot of criminals. We’ve replaced procreation with recreation as the only pardonable excuse.

This accusation — that what I do in private, for pleasure, hurts others — has always been too heavy a weight for my girlish shoulders. But rather than laboring under guilt, I think lately it may be the wrong interpretation.

Doing it for money is no different than doing it in any other condition. Which is to say, we all have choice — to do it once, or all the time, or not at all. And the same goes for all the aspects. The thigh-high boots. The heels. The strap-ons. The stupid riding crops.

Men have got to realize that. If they don’t, it’s their loss — and our problem, as the women who’d like to sleep with them — but not our fault.

Sure, it would be nice if sex work helped educate and enact social change (and on sunny days, I think it might) but I could say that of everything I do. People are always going to be selling sex, and people are always going to be buying it. And like it or not, humans are a bunch of kinky motherfuckers.

If you oppose pro-doms, how do you feel about other sex workers? The same? Different? Why?

Are you concerned with sex workers whose representations do not clash with your proclivities?

The first of my books are beginning to arrive! I started with one called Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry.”

I read it first (even though I had pledged to read something about feminism, not sex work, for once), and in a hurry, between clients at work. After all, one of the editors was at a panel I attended on Monday: “What’s $ Got To Do With It? Sex Work, Economics and Class“. It was a discussion about subjects I rarely hear: Is there a community of sex workers? Should there be, and what are we doing to create it? Is there a political movement? Where is it going? What is the current state of political sentiment, legislation, and law enforcement? What can be done to change it?

I try to keep my mouth shut at such events, but toward the end my hand popped up anyway. I haven’t blushed so much speaking up since middle school. A couple of the attendees thanked me for speaking, which had the odd maybe-reassuring, maybe-patronizing feel of an AA meeting, and another lady quipped “You should’ve been on the panel”. Yeah… and I should get on with my college degree, too.

On the way out I picked up $pread magazine’s new issue, which has a whole section about money. Of course it’s about money, I thought, how silly! All jobs are about money. But it’s not actually so straightforward. Quite often we predicate the entire value of sex work on the money and free time. Our critics like to point out the tenuous nature of pay in an effort to discredit the work. Sure, we make money (and thus our work is worthwhile) when young and well and pretty, but what if we’re sick or grow old and fat, which could happen at any time? Sex work can’t possibly hold any merit if it can’t guarantee its one redeeming feature.

Today I stumbled across an article called Is Stripping A Feminist Act? The author explores a few viewpoints on sex work as feminism, then concludes that money ultimately makes it a feminist act — that poverty is the most degrading of all.

Tasty Trixie, a blogger I have read for years, also posted a diatribe about renumeration a few days ago. She has been open about her struggles with debt and the financial side of the pornography business; here, she takes on the sting of selling something so (in)valuable, and getting so little in return. I found this a remarkably brave post.

The comments on the Alternet article (”Is Stripping…”) are worth a skim. You don’t need to read all 500some of them, but go ahead and get a feel for the diversity and strength of some of the opinions expressed.

While books and articles are nice, it can be eye-opening seeing the same put out on the Internet, where its readership can respond. When A Cnet article came out recently on kink.com’s new live shows, I stared and bookmarked it — not because of the slanted article, but the comments left. I won’t quote the worst, but here’s one:

Who the hell cares about piracy at Kink.com?
This is like posting armed guards at the sewage treatment plant.

And that, quite simply, is why I bother with all this stuff. No matter how great my life is, I cannot separate it from the rest of the vitriolic world.