Lovers of smart sex-work talk should check out Kitty, a formerly-SF-now-UK sex worker. Her baby blog PurrVersatility has two fabulous posts recently, one on forced feminization and one on threesomes. Too many people bog down in jokes and ostentatiously sexy bits; I’m liking her clear, light and incisive prose. Add her to your feed reader.

Today’s question: Does knowing who’s reading change the appropriateness of what I write? I’m not a “male apologist” any more than I’m an “angry feminist”, but I’m not here to be nasty to anyone.

If you are or might be a client: please understand that my frustrations are not personal. Let the more caustic bits here be tempered by the humor and good will with which I intend them.

Those of you who’ve found me through here have surprised and delighted me. I never expected to meet clients through blogging. Sessions with you have been some of my favorites. You restore my faith in this job, and for that, thank you.

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.

I’m sad Spitzer resigned so fast! It took all the fun out of my fantasy.

I’d begun to collect the various arguments I’ve dispensed across the Internet the past couple of days, when I realized that Glenn Greenwald had done it for me, without all the cursing and impotent frustration.

If you read one thing on the Spitzer sex scandal, let it be this. You have to sit through a couple seconds of the Salon ad, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Link via Mistress Matisse.

Spitzer, darling. What were you thinking?

I don’t mind if you patronize prostitutes. I think it should be your legal right. However, you should ask your wife about it first — and oh yeah, make sure it’s legal in the state you govern. It looks bad when you’ve made your name as a high-and-mighty moral reformer, busting up prostitution rings in Staten Island to much press and acclaim. You deserve all the “eliminating the competition?” jibes you’re gonna get.

Don’t resign, dear. If this is the end of your career, go out with a growl and not a whimper. Be brave. Make it count! Admit that you’ve been a hypocrite, since we already know it to be true. Then tell us you regret wasting your time targeting prostitutes when there are important governmental concerns.

As sex-obsessed as we are as a nation, we can get over a little scandal. (See also: the Clintons.) Focus on something worthwhile, tell us that prosecuting prostitution is not, and maybe this will all go down as a darkly humorous blip in the records.

kisses,
Calico

p.s. This one’s free.

I’m chatting with folks in San Francisco about another trip in April. While I wait impatiently for them to get back to the office on Monday, I’m wondering to myself: which sites would I like to shoot again?

It’s probably a bad idea to change my limits in order to shoot for The Training of O, based solely on this picture of Adrianna Nicole:

but damn, is it tempting.

Admittedly, Kink.com is not my perfect porn. It’s all about forced orgasms (which I could really give a flying fuck about), and cock-hungry little sluts (yes, and?), and other porntastic tropes I could do without. Only on Device Bondage did I get smacked around just because.

But! They do great work. The sex I have there is always challenging and hot. And whatever you think of porn, I think they come close to art.

In order: Berlin, Lorelei Lee, Sara Jane Ceylon. I’ve never met Lorelei Lee (though I’d love to) but I’ve been in a hot tub with the other two. My life makes more sense if I speculate that some adolescent boy wished on my star by accident.

During a shoot a few weeks ago, I was asked: Would you describe yourself more as RACK or SSC?

I managed not to laugh, but it was tough. The whole RACK vs. SSC thing is just funny. (If you’re feeling masochistic, go ahead and Google the semantics, but don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.)

When I first decided I was kinky, I bought a bunch of books and learned to recite “safe, sane and consensual” like the Pledge of Allegiance. I think this was not an uncommon experience.

But, see, all sex should be informed, safe and mutual. Whatever the motives and activities, our creative perversion is still sex. And we know what all sex should be, right? Right.

If what I am doing is just sex, why does kinky sex need these acronymic edicts? I think it’s to distinguish it from the shithole of repression, silence and shame that is regular sex in our culture. For many people, sex does not include talking or honesty. They don’t feel that they can share limits and desires. They don’t expect ever to be able to. Not with their partners, sometimes not even when they’re paying me.

And yeah, in that framework where you can’t ask, tying up and beating people is abuse. It’s just not my framework. In mine, those neat little acronyms are foregone conclusions. It is because of the rest of the world and their fucked up, uncommunicative sex that I have to bother articulating it.

Your sex life may not include any communication at all. But I’m going to be judgmental and say, I think your sex life — no matter what it entails — would be a lot better for it.

I’m a stubborn sleeper. I do not like being awakened for sex. My mandate is to return to sleep as expeditiously as possible.

One ex and I coined a rule for night-time sex: if he could make me do it, he was welcome to it. Often I’d wake to his hand between my legs. Shrimp-curled and antipathetic, I’d swat him away. Stop it! I’d mumble. I’m sleeping. No, get off, you fucking pig.

The man outweighed me by a good sixty pounds, not counting the heft of his nocturnal determination. Inevitably he’d pick me up by a limb and wedge my thighs apart. If I punched him, and I usually did, he’d pin my wrists with one palm.

I loved it… at least, after the fact. It was just enough ill-use to double the pleasure of wakefulness, when I’d dig my heels into his sides and offer affirmation and prayer to anyone in earshot. Sleep-sex made a perfect playground for my rape/resistance fantasy. I really didn’t want it before I woke up, but once I did, I was vocally grateful.

It’s not the only situation I can think of where committing the wrong makes it right. The trouble, of course, is knowing which.

This is me entirely spoiled. All dress-up occasions should be such fun!

My friend Rob needed a garment that could be pierced on for a demo, so I sewed one for the occasion. He laced me into it with the help of a few 18g needles. All pictures by Dov.

There are no good front shots of the corset, but it works as an actual garment, so I’m sure there will be a photo at some point.

Surgical staples. They barely pinch, but the stapling noise is something else.

They make for surprisingly effective bondage. Turns out, knowing that you can easily and near-painlessly rip out your staples is not the same as doing it.

A-ha! They untied my arms. Here’s me unhooking myself.

The corset’s making a break for it in this photo, but I include it so you can see my Rocky Horror-esque hotpants. Also, the burn on my ass. My advice to sewers: even if you lack a table and ironing board, do not crawl around on the floor sewing while your iron is on.

Aww, pretty.

As you can see, I’m terribly distressed.

This entry brought to you by Paddles, Conversio Virium, and TES-TNG, who helped put together a fabulous piercing class and play party last night!

You have bruises on your thighs.
Oh — it’s nothing.
Did you get those here? By “here”, he means the Midtown dungeon where he has hired me to play submissive.
Oh, no.
Then who?
One of my boyfriends. It’s the easiest word.
He beat you?
Yes.
And you liked it?
Very much.
Did he fuck you afterward?
He did.
Does he fuck you in the ass?
Yes, he does.
Does he have a big cock?
He does — I love it.

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he hits me with the flogger. It falls higher than I like, at the base of my neck, but I don’t say anything. It is light and I am not breakable.

Your boyfriend lets you fuck other men? he asks me.
Why not? I’m a lot to handle. Again, an easy answer.
They don’t mind you doing this?
No. Another.

He wraps the flogger so it hits my breast. I jump. Then the other side.

If I were your boyfriend, you wouldn’t have to do this.

He’s laying into the bruises on my thighs now, punctuating his words, the tips of the soft flogger flicking up between my legs. He sounds a little angry, and it makes me sad.

They never believe me. Why would they? Women don’t actually fuck. Women don’t actually get off on pain. Women don’t actually choose to be sex workers.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’m not selling my body to change the world. I’m here to make a living and get you off. I believe it can really be that simple. You can have my modesty, and my dignity, and my body. Leave me my agency.