The Accidental Prostitute
Sep. 24th, 2004 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whatarewordsforA long time friend of mine said to me on the phone today that my ability to cut others slack is almost "christ-like". Hmph.
You know... I hear a lot. I see a lot. People share with me the sorts of things they don't share with anyone else probably. I joke that I'm just collecting material for a book. I wanna know how it got this way. It surprises me the things people tell me. People I don't even know. Things that show some kind of trust that one shouldn't have in an aquaintance. Things that could get one socially screwed, de-licensed, or arrested if I only said the right thing to the right person. I'm a priest hearing others confess their sins. And I don't even offer absolution. Or perhaps absolution comes in my lack of shock, judgement, damnation and the fact that I heard them. And sometimes some of the notions people have about me and the assumptions they make just floor me.
Like recently, there have been on several occasions, people who have said things to the effect of "why don't you just find a guy with money?" This to me is a suggestion more offensive than I can properly describe. To which my stock answer is in the form of the question: Why don't I just make my own? And the answer is how you gonna do that? What are you gonna do now? It'll take you a while to make your own money. At which point I just want to hiss and throw things and claw somebody's eyes out. Really. Just trying to help eh?
Prostitute is something I did for money, not how I identify myself. It is not what I am, not what I feel, and not a lifestyle. Suggesting I start trolling for a rich guy to take care of me is like suggesting I escort with one client 24/7. And then it's not just my body for sale, it's my affection. And that's something I can't sell. A body is just a vessel, it is not a soul or an emotion, `granted you have to maintain it and try to avoid it getting hurt so you can continue to parade around in it, but it's just a body. It's a gas bag. A useful gas bag, but a gas bag.
Now, I've had clients I can stand. I had a grand total of maybe *3* that I can honestly say I enjoyed in any capacity and only on a surface level in 8 years of various shades of the business, but that's just a relief when it happens, not a basis for how I want to structure my life.
The hardest part was feigning affection. It pained me to do so. And oddly enough, despite contrary belief, a large amount of clients wanted that feigned affection more so than they wanted their load popped. (Just ever so slightly more, let's get real here.) Everyone just wants someone to touch their life. And to touch them. Really touch them. Honestly touch them. Some people can pretend that they're really being touched.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on money in a relationship. Sad thing that a lot of women have been fed is this fairy tale bullshit of being whisked away into the affectionate arms of a prince in a golden castle to live happily ever after. And then men with money fancy themselves such a prince and want to know where is this wife that's going to love me ever and after because I have financial security while men without as much wonder what they're doing wrong. Women are looking for the man with the money and the car and the credit cards and men are trying to get the money and the car and the credit cards so they can have the woman. This seem skewed to anyone else? I know there's exceptions to the rule, but I swear if I hear one more person saying "You're bright, and attractive and sophisticated, why don't you just find a rich guy" I'm gonna unleash all the furies of hell on whoever the unfortunate sap is that makes such a suggestion. Even if they're just joking. I'm serious. I'm sick of it.
Take care of me. You know what I think when I think "take care of me"? I think listen to me. I think know how I like to be touched. I think check on me when I'm sick. I think ask me how my day was. I think help me with practical matters. I think get me to food when my blood sugar's too low. I think accept me for what I am right now at this very moment and not for what you think I could be. I think pay attention. Know what makes me tick. Keep a rolodex in your brain of my likes and dislikes. Encourage me in my endeavors. Let me cry on your shoulder if they fail. Hug me when I've had a bad day.
I don't think "Here. Have some money. Now leave me alone. Now pay attention to me. Now get dressed up and let's make some appearances. Hm.. you're upset. Want money for a shrink? What the fuck is it NOW? Suck my dick. That'll make you feel better won't it?" That may be a harsh gross exaggeration, but that's what I think of when I think of being with someone simply for the fact that they can provide for you. Now if I were to fall for someone with money and common interests, and common bonds, that might be different, but who the hell would I be requiring them to fund me just because they can?
Could I honestly sell my affections and devotions out to the highest bidder? That's vile and disgusting and goes against just about everything I hold dear and true to my heart. I certainly wouldn't want to support someone who was damn able to take care of themselves. Why should I ask the same? Fuck.
The best part about selling my ass and faking it for money was probably the fact that I could leave. Hour's up. Gotta go. I'm not gonna remember your name, you don't know mine. Not my real one anyway... I didn't have to wake up with any of em. I didn't have to live a lie. I just had to pretend for an hour. And I didn't even have to pretend THAT much. Just a stage smile and an "ooh baby" goes a long way when you're naked. And you're gone before they start asking questions. The hour ends right about the time when half of them wanted to cuddle and the other half had already rolled over and gone to sleep. The ones that wanted to cuddle were the WORST though. It's like oh for fucks sake, I gotta go. I can't do this. Bye.
Lies lies lies. It's so satisfying now to fuck and curl up with someone I actually like. No sense of obligation or work.
Back to the gripe about society's emphasis on money in relationships: Maybe I'm the last of the romantics. Maybe my desire has no bearing on someone's tax bracket. Maybe I wanna consider what they do for me body and soul instead of what they can do for me on a material level. (Granted I'm all done with the support the failed drug dealer/mental patient sugar momma routine. At least have your own life and be able to feed yourself please.) Would I like to have money? Sure. Fucking a. Tons of it. Would it be great if it fell from the sky? Given to me no strings attached? Hell yes. But sell my love for it? No. I'd rather eat out of garbage cans. I'd rather have to resort to fucking strangers in dark hotel rooms with the tv inexplicably left on showing some infomercial at 4am knowing that if I tell someone I love them, I mean it.
So many people sell out. So many people settle for someone who compliments them in a business sense. Who will make my life look better? Who is joined with me in my material dreams of the house and the picket fence and the suv and the 2.5 children. Who can I kind of put up with. Passion is a dream. Passion fades. Passion is only for the movies. Only for the books. I see so many marriages that look like business arrangements. I don't want one.
My mother did it. My parents did it. They've been doing it 50 years now. My mother was raised in such an abusive trailer trash WWII environment she figured a man that didn't beat you and put food on the table was a good man. My father had to have a pretty wife and a piece of land and lots of children to carry on the family name. My mother wanted to go to sea. She wanted to be a sailor. But women didn't go to sea in those days. Her job was to stand behind her man and raise the kids. My parents haven't shared a bed in about 20 years. I never saw them kiss. I never saw them hug. I never heard them laugh together over a conversation. My mother would get all dressed up to go to functions at the Elks club and be a dutiful wife. It was all about keeping up appearances.
Many of my clients were married. Married with money and children and nice cars. From the outside, everything looked good. So why were they seeing me? Why did they roll their eyes when they said the words "my wife". Meh... I don't want to be there. The "wife" in question. Maybe people should just stop settling for the sake of looking good and some damn biological clock and just hold out for someone that feeds their soul. Stirs their passions, speaks the same language. Hell... it might even help with population control. But that's not gonna happen. Too much of the bullshit fairy tale. You know... the one that never comes true. The one that sells romance novels to dissatisfied wives that lock themselves in the bedroom and devour them while having a good long go at themselves imagining that they're the ones being written about. Imagining passion and everlasting love and a good hard fuck. Then their husbands come home and they look at each other across the dinner table, exchange pleasant conversation, put the kids to bed and fall asleep in front of the tv.
It's quite the mindfuck really. We're fed the fairy tale growing up and then when we grow up we're told to forget the fairy tale, buckle down and go straight, find a suitable partner and breed. Sell out. Passions and feelings and emotions are dangerous. Take your prozac. Go to work. Got financial security? Good. Watch the tv. Get your instructions. Fill your house with furnishings from the department stores. Put up a tree at Christmas. Constantly be in debt. But does it look good from the outside? Okay... relax. Everything's fine. Does it feel good? Are you happy? Really happy? Huh? That was an option?
So many couples disgust and frighten me. So many like my parents. So many not giving off a true sense of loving and respecting each other. So many I just look at and wonder...
But then, just when I'm about to give up and decide that romance is futile, there's that one or two here and there that actually... seem... Happy. Truly happy. I know a couple that's been married for 25 years. When I see them together, they're vibrating. Resonating still. Their eyes light up when they talk about each other. They're still having sex. They do their own thing and support each other and encourage each other. Being around them gives me a case of the warm fuzzies, crazy as that may seem. It does happen. I don't think either one of them had shit when they got together. Nothing but a spark. A spark that grew. A spark that just continues to grow. And I wish them well and hope that the sparks continue to fly as the years wear on. All my friends really. All you people in relationships. May your sparks continue to fly. May your passions always continue. May you work together to create and grow and flourish. May you weather difficulties and storms and come out stronger for it. May you never settle for anything less than that what you truly want. May you never sell out. May you burst through the fallacies of fairy tale princes and sleeping beauties and awaken to life love and fulfillment.
It's your life. It's my life. Make it real. Make it happen. Cause we're all gonna die. And we all owe it to ourselves to be with who we want to be with simply because we want to be with them. And not just cause they look good on paper. Not for what we want them to be, but simply because of what they are and how that makes us feel.
Never compromise, never settle, never stop dreaming, never give up.
Cause when you give up it's over. And you're just the walking dead. Waiting to go to sleep just one more time without having to wake up. And who knows what happens after that? You might be done. There may be nothing after this. No second chances, no reincarnation, no heaven, no hell, no purgatory. This might be it. There are no guarantees. No proof of anything after this. No enlightenment. No peace. No sense of belonging to the universe. I mean... if there is... bonus right? But just in case there isn't, how does that affect what we do today? And what we want? What do you want out of life anyway? And why? Why do what we do?
Well.... why not?
You know... I hear a lot. I see a lot. People share with me the sorts of things they don't share with anyone else probably. I joke that I'm just collecting material for a book. I wanna know how it got this way. It surprises me the things people tell me. People I don't even know. Things that show some kind of trust that one shouldn't have in an aquaintance. Things that could get one socially screwed, de-licensed, or arrested if I only said the right thing to the right person. I'm a priest hearing others confess their sins. And I don't even offer absolution. Or perhaps absolution comes in my lack of shock, judgement, damnation and the fact that I heard them. And sometimes some of the notions people have about me and the assumptions they make just floor me.
Like recently, there have been on several occasions, people who have said things to the effect of "why don't you just find a guy with money?" This to me is a suggestion more offensive than I can properly describe. To which my stock answer is in the form of the question: Why don't I just make my own? And the answer is how you gonna do that? What are you gonna do now? It'll take you a while to make your own money. At which point I just want to hiss and throw things and claw somebody's eyes out. Really. Just trying to help eh?
Prostitute is something I did for money, not how I identify myself. It is not what I am, not what I feel, and not a lifestyle. Suggesting I start trolling for a rich guy to take care of me is like suggesting I escort with one client 24/7. And then it's not just my body for sale, it's my affection. And that's something I can't sell. A body is just a vessel, it is not a soul or an emotion, `granted you have to maintain it and try to avoid it getting hurt so you can continue to parade around in it, but it's just a body. It's a gas bag. A useful gas bag, but a gas bag.
Now, I've had clients I can stand. I had a grand total of maybe *3* that I can honestly say I enjoyed in any capacity and only on a surface level in 8 years of various shades of the business, but that's just a relief when it happens, not a basis for how I want to structure my life.
The hardest part was feigning affection. It pained me to do so. And oddly enough, despite contrary belief, a large amount of clients wanted that feigned affection more so than they wanted their load popped. (Just ever so slightly more, let's get real here.) Everyone just wants someone to touch their life. And to touch them. Really touch them. Honestly touch them. Some people can pretend that they're really being touched.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on money in a relationship. Sad thing that a lot of women have been fed is this fairy tale bullshit of being whisked away into the affectionate arms of a prince in a golden castle to live happily ever after. And then men with money fancy themselves such a prince and want to know where is this wife that's going to love me ever and after because I have financial security while men without as much wonder what they're doing wrong. Women are looking for the man with the money and the car and the credit cards and men are trying to get the money and the car and the credit cards so they can have the woman. This seem skewed to anyone else? I know there's exceptions to the rule, but I swear if I hear one more person saying "You're bright, and attractive and sophisticated, why don't you just find a rich guy" I'm gonna unleash all the furies of hell on whoever the unfortunate sap is that makes such a suggestion. Even if they're just joking. I'm serious. I'm sick of it.
Take care of me. You know what I think when I think "take care of me"? I think listen to me. I think know how I like to be touched. I think check on me when I'm sick. I think ask me how my day was. I think help me with practical matters. I think get me to food when my blood sugar's too low. I think accept me for what I am right now at this very moment and not for what you think I could be. I think pay attention. Know what makes me tick. Keep a rolodex in your brain of my likes and dislikes. Encourage me in my endeavors. Let me cry on your shoulder if they fail. Hug me when I've had a bad day.
I don't think "Here. Have some money. Now leave me alone. Now pay attention to me. Now get dressed up and let's make some appearances. Hm.. you're upset. Want money for a shrink? What the fuck is it NOW? Suck my dick. That'll make you feel better won't it?" That may be a harsh gross exaggeration, but that's what I think of when I think of being with someone simply for the fact that they can provide for you. Now if I were to fall for someone with money and common interests, and common bonds, that might be different, but who the hell would I be requiring them to fund me just because they can?
Could I honestly sell my affections and devotions out to the highest bidder? That's vile and disgusting and goes against just about everything I hold dear and true to my heart. I certainly wouldn't want to support someone who was damn able to take care of themselves. Why should I ask the same? Fuck.
The best part about selling my ass and faking it for money was probably the fact that I could leave. Hour's up. Gotta go. I'm not gonna remember your name, you don't know mine. Not my real one anyway... I didn't have to wake up with any of em. I didn't have to live a lie. I just had to pretend for an hour. And I didn't even have to pretend THAT much. Just a stage smile and an "ooh baby" goes a long way when you're naked. And you're gone before they start asking questions. The hour ends right about the time when half of them wanted to cuddle and the other half had already rolled over and gone to sleep. The ones that wanted to cuddle were the WORST though. It's like oh for fucks sake, I gotta go. I can't do this. Bye.
Lies lies lies. It's so satisfying now to fuck and curl up with someone I actually like. No sense of obligation or work.
Back to the gripe about society's emphasis on money in relationships: Maybe I'm the last of the romantics. Maybe my desire has no bearing on someone's tax bracket. Maybe I wanna consider what they do for me body and soul instead of what they can do for me on a material level. (Granted I'm all done with the support the failed drug dealer/mental patient sugar momma routine. At least have your own life and be able to feed yourself please.) Would I like to have money? Sure. Fucking a. Tons of it. Would it be great if it fell from the sky? Given to me no strings attached? Hell yes. But sell my love for it? No. I'd rather eat out of garbage cans. I'd rather have to resort to fucking strangers in dark hotel rooms with the tv inexplicably left on showing some infomercial at 4am knowing that if I tell someone I love them, I mean it.
So many people sell out. So many people settle for someone who compliments them in a business sense. Who will make my life look better? Who is joined with me in my material dreams of the house and the picket fence and the suv and the 2.5 children. Who can I kind of put up with. Passion is a dream. Passion fades. Passion is only for the movies. Only for the books. I see so many marriages that look like business arrangements. I don't want one.
My mother did it. My parents did it. They've been doing it 50 years now. My mother was raised in such an abusive trailer trash WWII environment she figured a man that didn't beat you and put food on the table was a good man. My father had to have a pretty wife and a piece of land and lots of children to carry on the family name. My mother wanted to go to sea. She wanted to be a sailor. But women didn't go to sea in those days. Her job was to stand behind her man and raise the kids. My parents haven't shared a bed in about 20 years. I never saw them kiss. I never saw them hug. I never heard them laugh together over a conversation. My mother would get all dressed up to go to functions at the Elks club and be a dutiful wife. It was all about keeping up appearances.
Many of my clients were married. Married with money and children and nice cars. From the outside, everything looked good. So why were they seeing me? Why did they roll their eyes when they said the words "my wife". Meh... I don't want to be there. The "wife" in question. Maybe people should just stop settling for the sake of looking good and some damn biological clock and just hold out for someone that feeds their soul. Stirs their passions, speaks the same language. Hell... it might even help with population control. But that's not gonna happen. Too much of the bullshit fairy tale. You know... the one that never comes true. The one that sells romance novels to dissatisfied wives that lock themselves in the bedroom and devour them while having a good long go at themselves imagining that they're the ones being written about. Imagining passion and everlasting love and a good hard fuck. Then their husbands come home and they look at each other across the dinner table, exchange pleasant conversation, put the kids to bed and fall asleep in front of the tv.
It's quite the mindfuck really. We're fed the fairy tale growing up and then when we grow up we're told to forget the fairy tale, buckle down and go straight, find a suitable partner and breed. Sell out. Passions and feelings and emotions are dangerous. Take your prozac. Go to work. Got financial security? Good. Watch the tv. Get your instructions. Fill your house with furnishings from the department stores. Put up a tree at Christmas. Constantly be in debt. But does it look good from the outside? Okay... relax. Everything's fine. Does it feel good? Are you happy? Really happy? Huh? That was an option?
So many couples disgust and frighten me. So many like my parents. So many not giving off a true sense of loving and respecting each other. So many I just look at and wonder...
But then, just when I'm about to give up and decide that romance is futile, there's that one or two here and there that actually... seem... Happy. Truly happy. I know a couple that's been married for 25 years. When I see them together, they're vibrating. Resonating still. Their eyes light up when they talk about each other. They're still having sex. They do their own thing and support each other and encourage each other. Being around them gives me a case of the warm fuzzies, crazy as that may seem. It does happen. I don't think either one of them had shit when they got together. Nothing but a spark. A spark that grew. A spark that just continues to grow. And I wish them well and hope that the sparks continue to fly as the years wear on. All my friends really. All you people in relationships. May your sparks continue to fly. May your passions always continue. May you work together to create and grow and flourish. May you weather difficulties and storms and come out stronger for it. May you never settle for anything less than that what you truly want. May you never sell out. May you burst through the fallacies of fairy tale princes and sleeping beauties and awaken to life love and fulfillment.
It's your life. It's my life. Make it real. Make it happen. Cause we're all gonna die. And we all owe it to ourselves to be with who we want to be with simply because we want to be with them. And not just cause they look good on paper. Not for what we want them to be, but simply because of what they are and how that makes us feel.
Never compromise, never settle, never stop dreaming, never give up.
Cause when you give up it's over. And you're just the walking dead. Waiting to go to sleep just one more time without having to wake up. And who knows what happens after that? You might be done. There may be nothing after this. No second chances, no reincarnation, no heaven, no hell, no purgatory. This might be it. There are no guarantees. No proof of anything after this. No enlightenment. No peace. No sense of belonging to the universe. I mean... if there is... bonus right? But just in case there isn't, how does that affect what we do today? And what we want? What do you want out of life anyway? And why? Why do what we do?
Well.... why not?
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I couldn't agree with you more ...
Date: 2004-09-24 08:43 pm (UTC)I sooo agree. Beautiful what you wrote. I'm right there with you.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-25 08:49 pm (UTC)