Paid For: thoughts about sex work

I'm reading Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution by Rachel Moran and I'm inclined to believe most of what this insightful and intelligent woman puts forth about sex work in this memoir.

First, how sex work SHOULD work: A sex worker outlines his/her services provided and fees for such services. A sex worker needs to be completely in control of the boundaries and services provided. Terms/fees/services included all set beforehand. Person paying for services rendered respects boundaries/terms set by sex worker. Because of the intimate nature of such work, person providing services can stop at any time. It is still sex and it still requires consent at all times and for each service provided. END OF STORY.

How Moran tells her story is completely NOT like this. Until we live in a non-sexist/feminist society, it can rarely be like this. Until respect is given to all humans as a matter of basic humanity, the story of the majority of sex workers is COMPLETELY different than the paragraph above.

Moran describes sex work the way she and her peers experienced it as Pay-Per-Rape, and I can understand why. Men who pay for sex think they have paid for a person, but they have not. They have paid for a service a person is choosing to provide. Men, because they are the ones in power both in our society as a rule and in the sex-worker/punter relationship (though this should be the other way around), are routinely abusive to women they've paid to provide them with sexual relief. Sex workers are literally raped, beaten, and abused in many other ways routinely. I'm sure it's easy to understand how this dynamic plays out without ever having been on either end of this exchange. It is horrifying, heartbreaking, and a downright awful way for a person to be treated.

Moran was from a family of dysfunction. She ran away at 13 (or thereabouts). She found herself homeless. After sleeping on the streets for a time, and one can imagine how awful being without a home truly is, it was suggested to her by a boyfriend that she could start giving hand relief and blow-jobs for pay. The prospect of having a roof over her head was so enticing that she began sex work at the age of 15.

It's easy to see how this choice (not that the choice itself is wrong, but the abuse she endured for making this choice) made sense for her. She didn't have a home. She had no basis of love and respect from her childhood. There aren't many other jobs available for a girl in her early-to-mid-teens. I could see how maybe this seems like an option for a young girl. To choose sex work as a profession, one would need to be old enough to make this choice for herself, and 15 is too young. I can also imagine how a girl of this age would make this decision. At 15, you don't know how ugly sex can get. You don't know how awful men can be. And then you're in and you're maybe getting beaten and abused and disrespected and seeing your peers on the street getting treated the same way. That's just the men who employ you; there's also the matter of society at large treating you as if you're nothing.

Imagine being 15 and feeling like you had to do something you didn't want to do for money, which is not the case for all sex workers to be sure, but is the case for too many. Imagine every family member and friend you'd go to if you needed a place to stay not being there, or not caring if they are there. Then imagine being treated like a non-person by the people you provide your services to AND society at large. You would feel worthless and everyone around you would be confirming it. This book is truly breaking my heart.

Perhaps in a world where sex workers could set their own terms and received respect of their personal boundaries and their worth as humans within their profession and by society as a whole, things would be very different. I don't know. But I can say with complete certainty that sex workers need our respect and far too many of them may also need our protection.

I don't have personal experience as a sex worker, and I acknowledge that Moran's experience is not every sex worker's experience. Should a person want to do this work, she should be respected and have complete autonomy. This isn't the case for many many women, but I hope that it is the case for many others.

The book has really dispelled a lot of my naive assumptions about sex work, though I am sure to have many more. I am so so sorry to anyone who has been the recipient of sexual abuse, no matter what your profession. My heart breaks for people that have endured this sort of treatment. It is not. fucking. fair.

Validation.

I seek it at a perverse level of intensity. I seek acknowledgement to the point of need.

If I suggest a plan for the day to my husband, I expect thoughts and a clear-cut, verbalized "Yes" or "No" as to preference of action.

If I, PURELY hypothetically of course, seek an Aspergers diagnosis with my therapist, I expect him to respect automatically that I am answering the questions provided to the best of my ability and not tell me he thinks I was answering them to get diagnosis. That offends me! I've been his client/patient/whatever-you-call-it for many years now, and he immediately invalidates this thing that I am. This thing he very reluctantly agreed I am, after much prodding. Then he didn't want to talk about it anymore. When I took the autism indicator I spent much time and effort making sure I was answering the questions truthfully, but still he doesn't believe me when I say I controlled for my biases. Normally, this assessment would make me question myself, but this time, no.

I'm tired of being the one that's expected to tell others how to treat me. I've spent my whole life knowing and advocating for people telling others how to treat them, and I do think this is incredibly valuable. You have to be assertive to get what you want, or even to know what you want, in this life. However, it is also very important to treat others with respect. Every single action I make that concerns other human being is weighed in my mind before taken. If I were this other person right now, how would this make me feel? Yes, I understand that I think too much...but I have an innate respect for other humans and I expect the same in return. I also understand that a lot of my assumptions on how others will feel in response to my actions is based upon how I would feel, and I'm a weirdo, so...

but again, I'm invalidating myself based upon the response I expect others will give me from these words. I'm just so sick of all the thought and all the screaming into the void I feel I am always engaging in...

I just want someone to get me. Really get me, without all these words in the way. Without me trying to explain. I want it so badly. To be understood. I feel it in small doses on rare occasions. And other occasions I defiantly DON'T CARE. But it's difficult to feel like you're the only one in a room reacting to a thing (a thing everyone in the room is also experiencing) the way you're reacting to it. Singular, alone, other.

The frustration doesn't come from feeling different so much as not being able to use words to tell others my point of view, and even when those words come, people in general do not want to discuss the fact that one weirdo has a reaction and wants to philosophize about a thing.

Again, the metaphor of screaming into the void comes. I'm screaming by blogging, by zine-ing, by art, by self-expression, by conversation, and I feel like I'm looking into a sea of zombie faces. Why doesn't anyone want to talk about feminism, religious dogma oppression, drag queens, Buffy, etc etc? My passions are isolated. I want to THINK and society wants to tamp me down into a tasteless powder.

I'm reading this book by Caitlin Moran called "How to Be a Woman" and one of the things I read yesterday was that she used to talk about the nuance of boys and her relationships constantly, every tiny detail analyzed, until a relationship is working...when something works, you shut up about it. I don't want to talk about boys, 'cause I got a good man...but the reason it's good is because we work at it and we demand respect from one another and give respect TO one another.

I've had cognitive dissonance with regard to the topic of prostitution and stripping for a long time. On the one hand, I've always thought it would take incredible courage to do either of those things and fuck, if dumbasses want to give you money for showing some skin and/or having some sex, take advantage of their stupidity....but, the truth is that these professions exist in their current form of disrespect and degradation BECAUSE of these idiots. I realized yesterday that it's not the professions of stripper and prostitute that bother me at all. I do still have admiration for sex-based professions (porn actors, strippers, prostitutes, etc), but they need to be in COMPLETE control of what they do. If all strippers were like burlesque performers (in their approach, not their look), in control of what they're doing and enjoying their sexuality WITH others who are respectfully (for the most part in burlesque, it's like a drag show. Everything's light-hearted, sexy AND fun...not dark and scary like regular strip clubs.) enjoying the show, then that would be wonderful. If all prostitutes could be like Inara on "Firefly" (she was a high-ranking member of society and she chose her clients carefully and was in complete control of her life and her job), that would be wonderful. If all porn actors could make films they enjoy making on their own terms without merely being objects for the men to fuck on film, then maybe more women would enjoy pornography. Maybe sex could be celebrated in a culture where women were free to feel ok about their sexuality. Perhaps we'd all get more tail if we respected one another and all that.

At this point, I'm all over the place. Starting my period in the next few days, finally. There's another subject: I use it as an initiation for men I know. If a man balks at talk of periods, he's gettin' an earful from me and no man I have EVER dated seriously has had any flinching reaction to my talk of periods. If he did, I wouldn't have dated him. 50% of the human population will have periods at some point in their lives. At any given time, several females you encounter are on their periods. Why can't we talk about it? Well, we can. Our brains are dosed in hormonal fluctuations to an extent that men don't have to endure. We go to work with cramps that would keep an unsuspecting man (you know, the ones who've never had a period, were they suddenly to get one, not that I think they couldn't handle cramps were they used to them as we are) on the couch wailing all day. My last period I endured cramps so bad that I couldn't walk for an hour. That's a pretty big deal, but I'm supposed to be quiet about it. Next time, I'm posting a status update about it. There's a shit-ton of mean-culture surrounding our periods....something we endure 30+ years of our lives 1/4 of that time. 25% of my child-possible (though not child-probable) time on this earth will be spent BLEEDING. From the crotch. This is something to talk about.

I'm sick of being quiet.