“predators”

I spent the entire weekend meditating on the words of Melissa Farley.

Why does everyone assume my clients are predators?? When I process with woman what it is that I do, particularly processing their feelings about how someone they love does sex work and how they feel about it, it almost always turns to a discussion where I defend my clients against assumption and hostility.

Of course I have my days where I bitch, days where everything is not rosy, but I hear more complaints from these same friends about their boss or co-workers at the office job. I have the power to cancel/refer/reschedule, they don’t.

When I started doing sex work, it was for a commercial dungeon here in Chicago. I did not identify myself as a sex worker, because I did not “lay on my back”. I had these ignorant assumptions that the power dynamic of doing sex work would change if I ever included actual sex… like penetration would take away my power. This is the fallacy of Melissa Farley, and every other feminist who claims that sex for money is inherently objectifying and victimizing.

After a few years of feeling victimized my MY EMPLOYER, I started to get active with labor organizing within the sex workers movement. All of my thoughts changed as I began to get friendly with escorts who traveled, had their own hours, didn’t require the huge overhead, clothes and equipment that domination did. Then I figured out that I was having “sex” all along. Maybe not the conventional type of sex we all think of, but sex by definition to both society and government. The distinction existed only in my mind, nowhere else. I started to dabble, then found myself working 6 days a week for an escort agency very much like Palfreys (but better hourly rates;)

I didn’t lose one ounce of power. I brought the same strong-head and stubbornness, my own sexuality, my own command of the situation into hotel rooms downtown for this work. At first I had no idea what these men wanted, I assumed it wouldn’t be spanking though. As my psyche loosen up,and I became more bold and excited about what I was doing, I figured out that spanking was a great ice-breaker for escort work, as long as I was into it. When one thinks of escort work, they have the idea of a prostitute and the “cock party” she participates in. An idea is created that has been conditioned into our minds from media and society. We think of a long-legged busty woman, and a seedy business suit man, participating in a scene not unlike tasteless porn. Wrong.

I have my marketable features to my body, but they do not fit the prototype of an escort. I didn’t say dumb and formulated phrases that you typically see in mainstream porn. I dressed how I wanted to, sometimes heels, sometimes combat boots. In fact, the less I looked the prototype of an escort, the better. Jeans and a creative shirt are the best working outfit to date (no pun intended).

And I didn’t give up my power. I was firm about boundaries, firm about my time, firm about my rates. Rarely did I ever encounter someone looking to walk all over those. I encounter a lot of respect and gratitude from clients. Do you hear me Melissa Farley??? RESPECT AND GRATITUDE.

My escort clients were typically travelling family men, in Chicago on business, nervous and easily intimidated. They are salesmen, teachers, lawyers, and they are your dads, neighbors, and yes… husbands. They are not “predators”. They are normal and professional (they have to be to afford my rates) and sexually frustrated. I had all the power in my confidence, and they were at my mercy.

If I said “this makes me hot”, they would do it in a heart beat, and these scenes always played out to be fun and experimental on their part. The real element that appealed to my clients was that I was having fun. As long as I stayed amused and involved with a relaxed and sincere spirit, they were thrilled. My true sexuality is very kinky, and they indulged that side to see me happy and hot. I never felt like I was compromising or lying about who I really am, and also rarely felt like I had to cater to them. I simply brought to the appointment a refreshing spirit about sex, and they bent and swayed to my agenda left and right.

This is one thing that I constantly am amazed at: how fluid and formidable men’s sexuality is. For a woman to be happy, the lengths they will go. This idea of losing power is nonsense. If you are a victim in life, you will be a victim in sex work. It is true and applicable to everything in this world. You are who you are. YES, there are woman victimized in sex work, and then further victimized by government and criminalization. There are woman victimized in 40 story office buildings, and in their marriages, and I have NEVER felt more victimized when I simply walk down the street in a tank top. It happens, and it’s root does not lie in our occupations, but in our society at large and in the dynamics of gender. I feel EMPOWERED when I am working in sex work, because the dynamic is drawn: You are my client, I have the services. You are paying me, therefore I make the choice. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn’t.

THIS IS WHY I LOVE SEX WORK! I am breaking down the walls of stigma! I am recreating the dynamic of power between genders! When you charge for your sexuality, you are drawing a line that doesn’t exist in normal gender relations. I am holding the power of my sex over the heads of whoever is willing to buy and stating the worthiness of being female saying: “THIS is how much I am worth for the hour!” No wasting time and energy asserting myself to the general public as a woman, my rates are right there at my website. You say I cannot commodify my sex and put a price on it?? Yes I can, and will, because I am sick of the standard of giving it away for free to one man at a time and only when I am in love with him, for marriage or relationships only. Their is a market for sex outside of these standards, and it is a way better deal.

There is a statement of the worthiness of women when you accept cash for sex, and it is that: I am female… I have everything.

I understand not every worker is female, but almost every client is male. If you don’t think that the power lies in the worker, think about who is getting paid, and who is not. Seriously, think about it. If this society was as chauvinistic and male-centered as we ought to believe, wouldn’t we be paying them? We are not. It leads me to believe that at the base of sex work is the TRUE dynamic of genders in this world. This is most definitely a man’s world, but you must subscribe to it and work within it to keep up that conception. Sex work does not do either of those things.

My clients are not predators… They understand the dues that are owed when they want to participate in sex outside of the standard. They understand the boundaries of charging for the hour, because they do it themselves in their own work. They understand that they are the recipients of services that I choose to give or not, based on the lines I have drawn, and they will respect that if they want said services.

I REFUSE to villainize them just because I am not their wife, it is only society’s sad expectation of men that they keep their cock in their pants for only women they love. I don’t want to live up to that expectation either.