"Just Whoreable" by Will Rockwel

"You're JUST a fucking WHORE." Could my boyfriend say that—mean that—my Guy, a former hustler himself? I had to face it—I was holding a dustpan full of broken glass and crumbled drywall, and I'd lived the American Nightmare before. My partner of one year had just left me, violently, for being a working boy.

"You're a whore, whores don't love ANYONE, and you never loved ME." His slapdash logic nonetheless cut deep. After a year of foreplay and pillow talk, hard core fucking and excruciating honesty, all our love had been reduced to a single tautological falsity.

It's an ancient school that teaches Harlots are callous and unloving, more, as Blake phrased it, the prostitute "blights with plague the marriage-hearse," bringing pain to the young and unsuspecting ensnared in his or her Devil's trap. But I didn't think my boyfriend, a former modern-day hustler, ascribed to the thought—despite heaps of evidence to the contrary, of an almost all-American regularity to tricking as well as the relatively low STI transmission rates in most sex-trading "populations," the belief persists that sex workers are immoral, disease-spreading predators. And don't forget innocent victims.

I identify with les immoralistes myself. "Many are the victims she has brought down." Proverbs 7:26

While I feel at a distance from other "normal" relationship-goers at dysfunctional moments like these, I have never felt so close to my moralizing Baptist mother as I scrubbed cakes of drywall off the floors—just like she used to, on her knees, crying with Comet® powder scraping the red off her fingernails. She wasn't a card-carrying "whore" like I am, but it was my step-father's word for her and she was never one to DEN-Y that Devil, as we say on Sunday. While I, on the other hand, have listened to too much Tina Turner, too many motherly shrieks of "You're traumatizing the children!" from behind closet doors, to take this particular abuse from anyone ever, and I mean ever, again.

I called the NYPD.*

And now we're over . . . but, I guess, it's our beginnings I wonder about. If I've always been a "whore," and he's known it, I need a reason why he didn't end it at the start, obsta principii. I need a reason why, after all our careful conversations, naïve theories—polyamory, free love—I couldn't see the undercurrent of disaster.

Is it possible to love and be loved while whoring?

On more dramatic, by no means characteristic, days like today, I wonder if I'll end like Zola's stigmatizing portrait of the prostitute Nana, diseased, French and unloved. I don't know which fate is worse ... In the meantime, I'll try to answer the unanswerable question, is it possible? by patching up the fist-sized hole in the drywall and sweeping the glass shards off the floors. Every dysfunctional, melodramatic and, of course, normal relationship needs its drywaller, I say, the partner who's left alone, sweeping up the dust we inevitably kick up, punch up, in our all-too-human "love."

*I called the Police Dept., but it was my friend M— who really saved me, my house mate, who came home that night and surveyed the damage and tried to force my flailing partner out the door—"Get Out! Get OUT!" He left, however, only when the officers arrived. No charges were pressed..

Read more from Will Rockwell at Sex!Work?

Bondage Pornstar Madison Young's Take on Work and Relationships

Madison Young recently posted about her own experience with work and love on her blog: Making Waves in Feminism One Anal Scene at a Time, in a piece about having a partner who also works in the sex industry.

Living Standard by Bettina Faye

At the cusp of our teenage years, we discussed (in whispered voices) extravagant plots for escape. When the time was right, we’d run away together; no jobs, no savings, no regrets. Many years later, when that time finally came, we had long since gone our separate ways. I had left the suburbs of Pennsylvania to pursue what I hoped would be a fruitful academic career. He was a college dropout, pursuing a series of dead end jobs in what could best be described as a dead end town (the type of town that chews you up, spits you out, and leaves no survivors if you stick around too long). When pitted against the often harsh reality of circumstance, our small-town dreams seemed like childish delusions of grandeur.

It was no miracle, but a phenomenal leap of faith, that brought him back to my side. We aren’t children anymore, but the life we’ve begun to create for ourselves looks remarkably similar to our silly adolescent schemes.

He brings in a server’s wage at a small cafe with peaceable (but notoriously stingy) patrons. We pay rent, we cover bills, and we treat ourselves to a nice meal out here and there. I embrace a future of simple living, but as I prepare to enter my final year of college, I’m continually struck by the fact that even a “living wage” is barely enough to keep one’s head afloat.

Sex work has long been a point of conflict for me. On one hand, I am thankful, because I approach sex work from a place of privilege. By turning tricks to pay my way through college, the stakes are very different than if I were turning tricks to feed a family. I’ve turned to sex work not as a means to survive, but as a means to craft a more dynamic life for myself and my partner. It is true that love heals, but cohabitation has taught me that the financial humdrum of everyday life can really hurt.

My decision to more actively pursue sex work currently exists in a state of limbo. When I ask my partner to share his concerns honestly and without hesitation, the answer is always the same - “I want you to do what makes you happy.” While I honor his selflessness, I can’t bring myself to accept this sentiment. I spent too many years floundering in an attempt to discover what truly brought me happiness. My partner challenges me, humbles me, lifts me up, and enriches my life in a way I’d once believed only existed in dreams. When I chose to be with him, I willingly accepted that I was now one variable in a new equation.

Can I truly be happy if I sense my decision breeds discontent in my relationship? Though my partner claims to want only what will bring me happiness, will he change his mind when I return home long after he’s gone to bed? When I return home with the scent of another man’s cologne lingering on my clothing? Will he tell me how he really feels when I bring home more money in one evening than he makes in a week?

And how does this make me feel? Shouldn’t I be toiling by his side, working for a pittance to honor the American Dream? Shouldn’t I be leaving for work the minute he arrives home, so we can fall into bed, cranky and exhausted, at the end of a very long day?

I love my partner, and it is this love that has left me confused and uncertain। The financial security I’ve gained in a short period of time has allowed me that much more freedom, but at what cost? Though he doesn’t say it, I can see him cringe at the thought of touching me after I’ve been touched by countless others। I’ve tried to convince myself that my personal sanctity cannot be determined by how many men I fuck and for what price, but when I find myself unable to share the “whole” truth with my partner, I realize I’ve still got a ways to go.

by Bettina Faye,

check out her blog:
I Paid for College

Giving it Up? Sex work as addiction...

I talked to someone tonight who used to date sex workers, in fact almost exclusively, until he got sober. No longer. He purported sex work to be akin to an addiction, and that so many of the people he dated wanted to leave the industry but couldn't. He explained that these women had a terrible time letting go of the highs of money and positive attention, though they wanted to get out. He admitted that as an active addict he was attracted to the sexuality of the business as well as the daddy role he got to play when the workers were struggling, but once he got clean, for his own sake he had to steer clear of sex workers.

I found this such an interesting perspective. It seemed like he was not only calling sex work an addiction but himself a sex worker addict. This reminds me of so called 'rice queens' and 'tranny chasers', both offensive and derogatory terms for those who seek out partners based on a specific demographic they fetishize. Would this guy be considered a 'ho hound'? Where is the line between fetishs and addiction?

I wonder if this is a common type of partner, those that consistently seek out sex workers as dates; either because they fetishize them or because they fit well with their 'addictive lifestyle'. I took umbrage at this guy's depiction of women addicted to sex work, but that's largely because I'm sensitive to non-positive comments on sex work made by those outside the business and none of my sex worker friends have gone through the cycle of wanting to leave without being able to. I certainly prefer sex worker or former sex worker partners solely on the basis of compassion and understanding around my work. Despite whatever other drama may arise, work has never been an issue with other sex workers I've dated and that is always such a relief.

I'm curious to hear if anyone else has met someone like this, someone who primarily dates sex workers, in a way connected to addiction or not?

Working Hearts in Naked City

Audacia Ray of Waking Vixen, The Bi Apple and Naked on the Internet fame edits a sex blog for the Village Voice called Naked City.

She has an interview series called Four on the Floor where she asks four questions. Sounds concise, n'est ce pas? Well, not when I'm answering.

She decided to interview me about Working Hearts beacuase of the dearth of resources focusing on sex worker relationships.
The interview gives a pretty thorough idea of the mission and motivation behind this blog as well as some Partner Tips.

Thanks Audacia for the interview!

Love-Work-Survey

Inara de Luna (nice last name!) is a Qadishtu ( sacred sexuality priestess) who created the Temple of the Red Lotus and blogs at Petals-in-ink.

She is conducting a survey about exactly this topic; sex worker's personal sexual relationships from applicable to workers and partners, and asked if I could spread the word here. Since I am very interested in getting this conversation amongst actual sex workers and partners started in widespread sense I of course, agreed.

I asked Inara about her interests and motivations in this survey, since I was unclear if she was an academic or researcher as well as tantrika, and this was her response:

"This project is mainly for my personal interest, because I am Qadishtu (or a sacred sexuality priestess), and this is a topic that comes up regularly. I'd like to write an essay on it, and possibly include it in the Qadishtu training program I offer through the Temple of the Red Lotus. I am also a sex worker advocate and am extremely interested in how sex workers manage their personal relationships, as sex work and Qadishtu work parallel each other in many ways."

So hear is the information for the survey from Inara, enjoy!
I will ask her to write a synopsis of her findings and post them here, I'm certainly interested in what other people have to say.

Survey here.

This survey is intended to explore the effects of being mated to someone who is a sex worker, a sexual energy professional, or a sacred sexuality practitioner. Please indicate whether you are a sexual professional in some capacity, or if you are the mate to someone who is. "Mate" simply means that you are in a personal intimate relationship with that person, regardless of how you define your relationship.

Note that "sexual professional" will be used to refer to anyone who engages in sex work, sexual energy, or sacred sexuality (where that work involves people besides a significant other), no matter what label is preferentially used.

The questions are designed to be neutral concerning who is taking the test, so both professionals and their mates are encouraged to answer all the questions.

Thank you in advance for your time.

Lovingly,
Inara
www.TempleRedLotus.com
www.twitter.com/inaradeluna

Comment on the First Poll

Karly Kirchner said:

I had to vote for four of them:

Work makes me Insatiable for my lovers!
Being in love is so distracting, I can't Work!
I can't work unless I'm getting some at home, or at the bar, or in the park..somewhere on my free time!
Work is Work and Love is Love, they don't affect each other, it's so different.

I can't separate all of this. I've felt all or some of them at one point or another. Most importantly, I feel very solid with my emotional and physical boundaries which allows me to float between all of these different emotions. Feeling like I'm able to be up front and frank with my lovers and partners is the best way for me to feel confident in all of my many relationships, regardless of whether they're personal or professional.

And I LOVE that this blog exists! Thanks for making it happen!