The Blog

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Rev: Alice Carrol

One of my beloved clients gifted me a two hour (!) massage with Alice Carrol. She and I have met and played before but this was my first time receiving unidirectional bodywork from her.

Her incall is reasonably convenient though I didn’t drive so I can’t tell you about parking. Straight up the Hill from me, I got my blood moving by walking the whole way. She let me in to her vintage building and a few flights of stairs later we entered a small, dim studio. She offered water and tiny donuts and we sat and chatted for a few minutes about what I wanted. Her studio is in an old building so it’s a little rough around the edges but she keeps it spotless and manages to work around the limitations of size and age.

Alice is extraordinarily accommodating. I said I was looking for a bit of deeper work in my shoulders and also that I wanted to experience her ‘standard sensual massage.’ She told me that, like myself, she constantly adjusts her bodywork to fit the vibe and needs of the client. We agreed I would take a warm shower to relax and we would regroup after.

I emerged warm and cozy from her small bathroom to find soft music and a sarong-wrapped Alice awaiting me. I lay face down on the table and settled in to relax.

Alice is deaf, meaning if she can’t see your lips, she can’t read them. As many of you know, I have a hard time not talking but in this case I had no option. The soft, familiar music, extremely dim lighting, and loooong sensuous strokes took me somewhere I don’t think I’ve ever been before. Her style for bodywork is deep, strong, and flowing. She constantly reapplies warm oil as it soaks in and she intersperses body-wide strokes with deep kneading by strong hands. Like, really strong.

After an eternity of indeterminate length, the depth of her strokes changed. Slowly, subtly, her hands slipped from heel to calf to buttock to shoulder, around, and back again. Again and again, almost hypnotic, her touch and silence directed my attention inward. It had been a long busy few weeks and I wasn’t sure my body would respond with arousal to her sensuous attention but I felt myself growing warmer with every pass of her hands.

She invited me to turn over onto my back so she could minister to my sore pecs and breasts, arms and forearms, and my rumbling tummy. She teased me about the mischievous brownie in her wanting to play with my nipples and with a look I invited her in.

Working on women sensually isn’t as simple as working on men. Our arousal is neither simple nor obvious and the rarity of female clients means, at least with me, I’m more timid and nervous. She slowly, slowly circled her hands towards my center after deeply kneading sore spots in shoulder and chest.

We paused for a moment to assess my body’s response. She definitely had me thinking about receiving her hands intimately and it was part sexual arousal, part curiosity that led us to deeper pleasures. Suffice it to say her touch is intuitive and she watches carefully for your reactions. It was tricky to give feedback in the dim light but she always made me feel welcome to speak up and ask for what I wanted. While I didn’t reach a climax, I reached instead a state of complete mindlessness.

After a shower and getting dressed again I expected to sit and talk shop for a bit but I found myself staring absently, vaguely searching for conversation and finding very little cranial movement. That’s unusual enough for me that once I noticed it, I just enjoyed it. There is a women’s only, clothing optional spa a few blocks down the hill from her apartment and in place of forcing myself back to reality, I walked emptily down to strip and sauna.

My full cognitive abilities didn’t return for an hour. A long, dim, quiet hour surrounded by naked goddesses sighing and gasping and whispering.

Alice gave me an opportunity to relax, receive, share, and enjoy without any pressure to perform or return. Her hands worked me over and her silence centered me. I have no doubts that, given the opportunity, she will do the same for you.

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Everyday Activism

At the panel a few weeks ago the same question came up in several different forms. One person asked

“What would you say to my intelligent, feminist, female friend when she says all prostitution should be outlawed due to the harms of trafficking and underage workers?”

Another asked

“How do I respond when someone posts and anti-sex work text or link on Facebook without dragging myself into a huge discussion?”

And at the private provider’s social one person asked

“What can I do if I can’t come out as a sex worker to destroy the stereotypes?”

The base of the questions is “What can I do every single day (sometimes as a well-intentioned, middle class person) that doesn’t jeopardize my social, financial, and physical safety?”

Here is what I do.

I am out to my closest friends and some semi-close friends who I knew wouldn’t react too poorly. I am not out at all to my family. To everyone in between, I am out as a sex workers rights activist. I support the Sex Worker’s rights movement, I work as a sex positive massage therapist to sex workers, and I do my small daily part to educate people when it comes up. I do that by admitting that I’m an ally and through my ally-ship I have met actual, real, honest-to-God sex workers and found them to be at the least normal, more often interesting and powerful women. I can talk about SASS and what I learned, the literature out there, the effects of decriminalization in other places, and I’m doing it not from a place of ‘you’re wrong, stranger’ but from a place of ‘dude check this out! I had no idea but sex workers actually care about themselves!’ I find that, as long as it’s not someone with strong moral beliefs, a different perspective from a trusted source (you, their friend) can begin to change the conversation.

So what can you do when someone posts a link on Facebook? First: recognize that they are not your audience. They’ve already made up their mind and while it’s possible you can change it, it’s unlikely. Your audience is not the poster, it is their friends and yours. Engage with the poster, knowing they are providing you a platform on which you can show others alternatives to the narrative. If you’re really serious about it, keep a note on your phone with links to interesting news articles like Liz Nolan Brown’s long form TRB essay or Maggie’s number crunching post. That way you can just copy/paste with a comment.

What can you do in real life? Next time someone makes a ‘hooker joke’ don’t laugh. Next time someone says something you know to be untrue, ask them why they said that (don’t correct them, facts don’t change hearts). If you’re brave, bring up the article you just saw about how young women are turning to camming and ‘sugaring’ to pay for college and how you had no idea it was so normal/widespread. Talk about the panel you just went to and how you met some interesting sex workers fighting for their rights. Send them one of my blog posts with the naughty stories and maybe they’ll stumble on something else interesting (you can play dumb and say you found it linked somewhere and didn’t read the rest of the blog).

The opportunities don’t come up often for me but when they do for you, don’t be ashamed to be an ally. Don’t be afraid to tell people you know real sex workers in real life and they’re actually surprisingly cool. And don’t fight so hard you lose the love and trust of your true friends. First it won’t work and second you’ll lose something important. I want decriminalization (Toni mac’s TED talk is a great link to explain that) but not as much as I want everyone to move forward, together.

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Stimulating

I’m a Redditor. Some of you have stumbled across me and recognized my writing style, my rhetoric, or my cause in my comments but unless you’re a Redditor you won’t know what I’m talking about.

First, Reddit.com is a user generated content aggregator. The hell doe that mean? It means that users can post content such as images, videos, links to other sources, original text, and even links to different areas of the site itself. Topics range from the benign to the terrifying and, as all communities do, has its share of drama. The community is global and share a certain number of inside jokes like Kyle, the CumBox, /r/theDonald, and your mom. If you don’t understand any of those, that’s ok. It probably because you’re doing something productive with your life.

What I like about Reddit as a social media platform is that, more than any other platform, I can carefully curate my experience. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like, you can follow certain people or organizations or trending topics, but with Reddit you subscribe to different sub-domains that each have their own vibe. I subscribe to SeattleWA, UpliftingNews, TwoXChromosomes, AdviceAnimals (silly memes), Science, AMA (ask me anything, basically live interviews with interesting people where the interviewer is the community), AskReddit (the inverse of the previous), BestOf, and several other interesting and sometimes highly specific topics such as for my favorite authors or this seriously long form story some guy is writing. It’s a place where I can directly interact with users from all over the world and share information, ideas, and support.

I also like that there is a voting system. As potentially compromised as it is, the voting system generally means that if I sort the comments by ‘top’ the first few pages of replies are generally interesting or quality content. It’s no free-for-all like a news outlet or blog’s commentary. I mean, it is, but poorly written, unhelpful, and outright wrong responses are often buried so you don’t have to waste time on them.

Another thing I enjoy about Reddit is the folks who create novelty accounts. One guy has a duck fetish, another writes only in haiku, /u/poem_for_your_sprog is one of the most talented and prolific poets I have EVER read and shows up all over the place. Another that I get goosebumps from is /u/commentnoir. He writes all his comment responses as if they were ripped from an old times noir novel and they’re actually really, really good. I saved this comment sometime late last year:

“Fresh haircut making me feel like a new man. Long, carefully manicured nails on the back of my scalp. A witchy woman seducing what’s left of my soul. Hide the hard-on; feel it pushing against my jeans. Red rocket ready to paint a Masterpeice the would make Jackson Pollock blush. She’s got full control, and she knows it. Sensation that makes a strong man weak and a rich man buy diamonds.”

I read that and it gave me shivers. It made me want to be the sensation that makes weak men strong and rich men buy diamonds. The musky glamour of Chinatown wafted from the screen and all he was talking about was the scalp massage during a haircut.

Yes, I wrote this entire post, all that background on some website that, if you don’t spend time on it yet, you probably shouldn’t, just so I could share that last phrase with you.

It resonates even more with me now than it did when I first read it. Then, I was still in elastic and flats. Now I ride the world in heels and elegance. Then, the woman I am becoming was a dream. Now, she is my future.

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Velvet: Round Two

For our friend’s birthday a year or two ago, Danielle and I so saturated our darling friend with sensation that he lost his ability to speak for a moment. I wrote about it because of how powerful the experience was. At the time, I simply assumed her energy broke through so vigorously all the time but I have since realized that, as with many, many other occasions, the long standing friendship and respect opened the floodgates. This is what happens when, over the course of four, five, or more years our clients earn our trust, respect, and friendship.

It started at a small Halloween Soiree where, among others, Tanuki (Caroline), Danielle, myself, and our mutual friend Velvet mingled. Someone made a joke about having all three of us for his birthday and you know me; my mind flew forward. A few words in the right ears and in a remarkably short amount of time (meaning a week or two instead of a month or two) we had all four sorted our schedules and settled the details. He brought donuts, I brought du fromage et du Prosecco (some cheese and some bubbles), Danielle brought little seafood nibbles, and Caroline brought a bottle of tawny port and some sweet Muscat grapes which just happened to be in season..

Standing around in the kitchen watching the four different energy levels rise and fall to meet each other, I felt a little shy, haha. For those who know me, you understand why I chuckle at that. We only have four hours and four bodies to work with and I have a lot of plans and I’m having a hard time getting naked! I mean, not too hard, but harder than usual.

Some friendly frottage and casual kissing leads all four up a flight of stairs to the massage table. Looking behind us I can see a trail of jeans, sweaters, and socks from the kitchen and I smile to myself. I’m not a fan of blow-by-blow recounts of personal, very special events; suffice it to say we made very good use of a solid, sensational, casual yet very sexy 45 minutes or so after which we all needed a moment to recover. Given the energetic combination it was a long, slow burn with some serious fireworks scattered throughout and I had as much fun playing with my colleagues as with our cashmere companion. With all three of us giving but not accepting touch, the poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

During the afterglow I made known my personal goal for the night: at our location was a large soaking tub with jets and a hand-held shower head. I led the charge up yet another flight of stairs into what quickly became a swampy, sweetly scented, bubbly, private steam room where we fed each other odds and ends brought from the kitchen and chatted. We all four adore each other and I have a tremendous amount of professional respect for my colleagues. With three and a half of us overflowing the tub and one sitting off to the side, we soaked until our toes turned into little pink raisins. I’d have stayed longer but the water got cold. Sigh.

On request and as a special favor, someone produced a jug of nuru gel and a waterproof mattress cover. Oh. My. God. That shit is fun. And messy. But fun! Round two of the evening was a playful, joyous, giggling mess. Less sizzle and pop and more goofy, sexy because we’re friends, chilly, frictionless, pressurized pleasure party. At one point, Danielle gave me a nudge and I swooshed from headboard to foot right between our friend’s knees! He planted a hand on either side of Caroline and myself and we spun like naked little tops over and over. We all almost fell off at one point or another but it didn’t matter, it was all in good fun.

We exhausted ourselves, stopped moving, and started to dimple with the chill so we all took turns in the shower and followed our trail back down, down the stairs into the kitchen where we donned the last few articles, gave our friend huge happy birthday hugs, and grinned.

I am incredibly fortunate to have in my life people willing to make time for pleasure and play like this. People I get to know over several years, people who listen and care and for whom I will bend over backwards to be with. At the end of the night, our grins weren’t just for the payoff, they were for the mere fact of our existence. That four hours fooling around was the most productive thing most of us did that day. That our lives are such that this sort of thing is not only possible, but happens easily, without effort or concern. We grinned in disbelief and in contentedness.

Special events like this can’t happen right away. Much of our willingness to orchestrate this get together relied on mutual respect and long standing relationships. Sometimes chemistry never does ignite and they can’t happen at all. But when it does, when we’ve racked up enough hours and become easy with one another while holding space for respect, then a whole world of possibilities opens up.

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Bridge City Indeed!

I drove to Portland last weekend. I was supposed to take the train but, due in part to my lack of clock-watching abilities and in part to a mud slide, I ended up driving Sunday morning instead of taking the train Friday afternoon. I had one marvelous appointment, took a girlfriend out for phenomenal Russian tapas at Kachka, and had a long and pleasant shoot with the infamous Jughead (newsletter subscribers see them first!).

Complications to the trip have sparked a rash of inspiration and it’s about damn time.

Friday, I was scheduled to leave on the 2:10 train from Seattle to Portland. I didn’t take any appointments, though I perhaps should have, and I hadn’t prepared the day before for the trip, though I definitely should have. I spent the morning taking a long bath, trying on various photo shoot outfits, and listening to an audiobook. Public transit has mostly cured me of my habitual tardiness; if you’re one minute late, you’re twenty minutes late so now I’m (usually) present and ready early. This time, however, I underestimated not only how long it would take me to walk to the station, but had it in my head that the train left at 2:20 instead of 2:10. I simply wasn’t thinking, I was existing in a state of dissatisfied laziness.

When I arrived, sweaty, at the train station to find boarding over, I was furious. At myself for an unforgivable lack of initiative and at my perception of my own lack of accomplishments lately. I hadn’t finished my blog post on time, I haven’t worked on my book in months, I attended but wasn’t useful at meetings and while in reality I have done quite a bit lately, I didn’t feel as though I had. This was the last straw. I changed my ticket to 6p and stalked away, muttering self recrimination under my breath and searching for someone with whom to pick a fight.

My partner is useless for fighting as every jabbing, pissed off text message met with kind understanding and empathy. I couldn’t hit something walking down the street; my vanity won’t let me appear anything but put together in public. I tried to vent to a friend but she wasn’t available for comment. So I mentally wrote the most scathing, ridiculous email in my history and continued my subaudible, vile litany.

Now I’m stalking up the sidewalk in tasteful heels and a backpack, seething, muttering, and deciding to run some errands. After a short stop at my studio I reemerge into the sparkling, gorgeous day and run one errand, try to run the second but the mangey, God-forsaken government office is closed!, and, anger renewed by inconvenient business hours, I settle into a coffee shop close to the train station for tea, pie, and a clacking vent session.

Then my prepayment software fails me. Square cash rejects one client’s payment and I have to scan my drivers license in order to accept another’s. I can’t find it. The rejected client cancels his appointment. I’m frantically texting and calling the woman I’m renting a work space from and then I get a call from Amtrak. The trains are all canceled until Sunday.

Fuck. Me.

This is when I start crying. Frustrated, angry, on the verge of cancelling the entire trip, everyone else trying desperately to cheer me up and offer options, and disappointed by the pie. It was really good pie but I’ve been spoiled by perfect pie so to me, I’m a girl at a table in the corner, crying over delicious tea and mediocre pie.

I almost canceled everything. I’m so close to fighting with my friends and blowing off clients that I feel I’m an emotional danger and I almost start making phone calls. But I said I would be there and so, after a few hours of writing to blow off steam (I will not be publishing that, haha) and a long, familiar bus ride home, I spent a decent chunk of time working on my new website and feeling like I’m accomplishing things.

The next morning bright and early I get ready to drive to Portland. I need to be there no later than noon so 7:30 and I’m up. Everything is ready to go in the car, I fill up the tank…. And my tire’s almost flat. And the gas station’s air pump is broken. Sigh. Whatever. I fix it and I’m on the freeway by 8:15. It rained the entire drive.

I don’t feel like a real person until 1. I’m sitting on a lovely chaise longue in a dim, quiet room, sipping coffee and eating lunch from the salad bar next door. I’ve got a client in an hour, a shower is waiting for me, and life feels normal again. After that the whole trip was a smashing success.

That said, I am hesitant to return. My friends come to Seattle, though not often, I won’t need or want another shoot for nearly a year, and trying to schedule clients in Portland is like pulling teeth. No one wants to screen, no one trusts my reputation, and no one wants to pay full rates. I feel, with the one notable exception, disrespected and under appreciated and why would I put up with that when you guys are so overwhelmingly delicious!?! I think if I can get a crew to go work a club for the night that could be fun but I’m really not excited about another trip.

Maybe next time I’ll go to Vancouver.

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SASS was brilliant!!!

Thursday from noon to four they held a health fair. I missed most of it but did arrive in time to hear about ‘yoni steam’ and say hi to everyone. Held at Gay City in their auditorium, there was education, camaraderie, and some fun reconnections. (Like my incredible massage therapist!)

Friday afternoon I attended an Allies meeting where Emi Koyama, SWOP’s new employee, is coordinating organizations into a coalition to support the safety of people involved in the sex industry. I met some really powerful women representing some excellent local organizations and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room with the wheels turning.

Friday night we heard from activist and transgender sex worker Cayenne, Defense attorney Zach, Coalition coordinator Emi, Gender Justice League activist and porn performer Tobi, and The director of the Butterfly Project at ‘The Harms of Prostitution: Voices From Within the Sex Trade’. Savanna Sly lifted the title from a recent anti-sex work town hall in order to broaden the appeal to abolitionist attendees. I had a Lot of feelings and opinions about the messages but overall I felt great walking away from it. One audience member asked what I called ‘the triggering question’ which is “I have a smart female friend who thinks all prostitution should be banned in order to limit or decrease the amount of exploitation. What would you tell her?” The poor guy got swamped after the panel by Sarah Nicole, Mistress Katherine, and a few others, myself included. Fortunately, like me, he enjoys spirited discussions and felt comfortable amid this cluster of powerful women (as I say this it’s possible that he didn’t recognize their power). I described him as part of the ‘well intentioned middle class’ and he agreed wholeheartedly. I would have loved to sit and chat for hours but by this time it was late and time to rest up for…

The Harlot’s Ball!!! Saturday night at a private club we had erotic dancers, kink stations, a kissing booth, and my friend Numina selling raffle tickets (20$ to wrap a string of tickets around her bust line. It was a VERY good deal). We saw Lady Vi in feathers and flats, Clara Turing in gold lamee and fishnet, myself in jeans and black velvet, Tanuki in rich velvet laced up the side, Savanna in her evil wombat costume, Sierre Cirque in a black and white checked body suit with tempting zipper placement, and dozens more sexy, sensual, and high styling folks heating up the dance floor. I saw a few get flogged, some energetic entertainers on stage, and the most sensuous, sexy kiss on the cheek I’ve ever served before. Maggie has some mad skills, I’ll tell you. And also I may have gotten mostly naked on stage for a minute. You know me: any chance to be the center of attention andI’m all over it.

Sunday I spent nearly the whole day surrounded by loving fellow practitioners. We had a legal workshop presented by Michelle Scudder, talented and sensitive defense attorney, and then just hung out talking for a while. I finally met the aptly named Sexy Bexy and WOW is her visage one to launch ships! I also met this charming pixie of a provider who I very much would like to work with. Of course, I don’t remember her name and she has my card but I don’t have hers. We shall see if she chooses to reach out.

Sunday evening was the Art of Activism show where Vee Chatty and Savanna Sly got to strut their stuff. I didn’t attend the event but I’ve seen their work before and I love their creativity, playfulness, and inclusivity. They weren’t the only artists, I know, but anyone who went to the show please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

I and many others are happy to see Savanna return. Her charisma and exuberance complements talents already present here in Seattle and the political climate here is vibrant and volatile. I’m really happy to have seen this year’s Sex Work Symposium and I encourage you all to attend or donate to next year’s. It will fall on national sex worker’s rights day again, so early March, and is well worth the cost of entry.

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Musing is my Meditation

Life is weird. Sometimes it’s crazy, sometimes boring, but my life at least seems awfully weird when I talk to my friends who don’t have one like it. I was teasing Claire that we should switch jobs for a day. I can wake up at six, dress in sharp feminine business attire, manage an office for eight hours, then come meet a client for some erotic Bodywork. She can wake up at 8:30, browse Reddit for an hour, don leggings and a boxy sweater, board a bus at ten, spend an hour or so lounging nude with a charming young gent, take a long bath, play with another girl for another few hours, take a nap, practice her French, eventually put clothes on, board another bus and head home. You always want what you don’t have, huh?

Outside, the wind tatters the sidewalk and rain cracks the windows. People with ‘normal’ jobs pass by in their air freshened, engine warmed envelopes as they, most oblivious but some with a shared secret, return from their day. My days blend together sometimes. I remember your face and your cock but not always your name. My assistant, perfectly efficient and pleasantly firm, keeps me busy in person. My precious hour between my beaux; a chance to wind myself up again, stress over who is right on the internet, forget all the things I’m supposed to do. Your missive “I just parked” breaking the shackles of my manufactured online world.

Alice, Verona, Matisse, Caroline… I crave time with you and forget to tell you. Much needed feminine feedback after my daily dose of testosterone. So close and yet schedules so far off.

Twangy tunes fiddle overhead; someone with mediocre but particular taste pumped the juke box. My drink cools as my salad warms and my thoughts drop with the rain. Autocorrect makes my words curiouser. (Typing on my phone because I no longer carry a satchel with my iPad in it. Hurt my shoulders.) The Cue cracks and rattles across the felt as the heating unit hums off and on.

I feel good. Not complacent but content. Content with my present but even more: content with my future. Looking forward towards goals and events with calm excitement. Enjoying that I can take a moment in between then and there to breathe, eat, drink, and enjoy.

SASS is this weekend. If you can, consider attending or donating. This event has already begun building bridges. Seattle has great things ahead of her.

Www.seattle-sass.org click on ‘tickets’ to attend or donate.

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The West Wing (TV show review)

I’m late, again, on my post. I’ve had, again, that peculiar combination of busy, not busy, and unmotivated that fiddles with my productivity.

But now I’m watching The West Wing and I’m inspired to write a TV show review which I haven’t done since Law and Order. I think.

I’ve had The West Wing recommended to me a few times but I never really picked it up. I kinda thought of it as a political procedural, like a police procedural. My experience with those has been that they’re great for a while but get less great over time.

I have a strong hunch this will not be the case with this show. I recognize these faces as actors whom I have developed a deep respect for and the dialogue is clever as hell.

Additionally, one and a half episodes in and they’ve hit hard on two big topics close to my heart: the Christian Right and Sex Work. I’m already blown away by the fast pace, the quotability, and their ability to hit stereotypes so hard they shatter them.

My partner has been watching a few other nineties shows; My So-called Life, Dawson’s Creek, the obligatory Law and Order… I’d been thinking recently that wee are in the golden age of television when watching Black Mirror and Breaking Bad but if this was on  regular television a couple decades ago and what I see on cable now is house hunters and reality TV then I am so, so wrong. These shows cover real topics like homosexuality, teen sex, young love, abusive relationships, in such a nuanced (if dated) way. Like, no one reacts to these things with moral condemnation, they react with problem solving and personal revelations. Yeah, some of it is to make TV interesting but making it interesting without reverting to car chases and gratuitous violence.

The way the characters in The West Wing deal with each other’s irritations and differences is with humor, anger, tolerance, intolerant discussions, yet a distinct desire to overcome differences and get things done is inspiring. I’m looking forward to finding how it unfolds as I binge it.

Anyone who wants to chat with me about it, feel free but NO SPOILERS! 😉 I’m only a few episodes into the first season.

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John School

I don’t like it. I think the idea is stupid and condescending. I hate the thought of some government flunky ‘educating’ my beloveds into never seeing me or my friends again. I love my clients and would never want them to see me as a passive victim caught up in ‘the patriarchy’. I don’t want them arrested, I don’t want them scared, and I certainly don’t want them ‘reeducated’ into somehow seeing themselves as broken for coming to see me and my colleagues.

That being said, I did just read an interesting article. Www.gq.com/story/cure-men-who-pay-for-sex-end-prostitution. I was prepared to be outraged, as usual, by some well meaning but misguided government agent shaming clients for seeking out providers to meet their needs. The headline ‘can we cure men who pay for sex’ is disgusting, as if the safe and professional answer to a natural human urge were a disorder. I was not prepared to agree with the heart of the article.

The article’s author observed and related one of the sex buyer reeducation programs here in King County. Apparently they’re a little different than most in that they don’t stick entirely to the fear and shame campaign most ‘classes’ offer. They talk about sexual harassment, women’s safety, emotional stability, healthy relationships, different ways of loving all the people in their lives… putting their decision to seek a sex worker in the context of their emotional health. It sounded surprisingly helpful and honest, if misplaced and condescending.

Connor Habib once said that what we need in the US isn’t more sex education, it’s intimacy education. While I don’t agree in the slightest that seeking sex workers is in itself a natural byproduct of ‘toxic masculinity’ I do agree that men could use a hand learning more about women’s experience. I wish this guy teaching this class would focus his efforts on getting his intimacy education classes out into the public instead of targeting men seeking sex workers. Partly because many men who would never see a sex worker need this education as much as those who do and partly because many men who see sex workers are already getting that education… From their provider!

To any readers who have been through ‘John School’: I hope that you found something valuable but if, as is likely, all you found was shame and anger, please know that it’s wrong. Seeing a consenting adult sex worker can be incredibly healthy and healing and it certainly doesn’t mean you aren’t a respectful, ethical, sexually realized person.

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Aging

We all make mistakes but generally not such basic, rookie ones. She handled it with grace but I shouldn’t have made it in the first place. I uttered the dreaded words ‘for your age’ not only to someone I admire but in front of our client.

As you can tell, I’m sure, my filter between idea and iteration is frayed. Particularly when I’m nervous or flustered. I tend to spit out whatever I’m thinking when it might be better to say nothing at all.

In my apologetic email, I tried again and again to explain myself but everything I wrote just dug me deeper into my hole. I’m kind of like the guy who thinks ‘doesn’t she look great in that tight dress? She’s got such great curves and that dress is so tight so it shows them off. I like her and I like that she looks really hot. Sausages are curved and juicy with a tight casing that makes them look so tempting. I like the way they look and taste. I would like to taste her, too, mmmm.’ And then says “You look like a sexy sausage.” Yeah, that guy? That was me with one of my heroes.

Most of the men and women I spend time with, many of the people who most inspire me, are significantly older than me. It amazes me when I find out their age and, far from lowering my opinion o them, it magnifies it. Very few providers admit to their true age partly because there’s this stigma against aging beauty. For some ridiculous reason, people think that 40, 50, 60, 70, even 80 and above are inherently limiting and there’s this perception that they are less sexually interesting. That’s patent bullshit. I can’t even wrap my head around the idea of aging as a negative in itself. I look at myself five years ago, realize how much I’ve grown since then, and realize that I have at worst EIGHT MORE of those five-year growth cycles.

Over the last five years I have: struck out alone in a new city, explored multiple aspects of the sex industry, achieved a professional certification, discovered and confirmed a life partnership, guided a protégé to safe professional stability, grown my social circle, traveled Europe, set and achieved emotional and financial goals, helped heal and entertain hundreds of beloved clients, and begun writing a book. Imagine the next five years! And the five after that!

However, in this case it was a comment about my colleagues physique. I was marveling that her form was, in my opinion, higher quality than mine. I’ve recently gotten my hands on several of my colleagues and one theme is how much more attractive I find them than myself. I’m sure a small part of it is novelty but they are genuinely in better shape with firm, beautiful busts and tight bottoms, and not only are they in better shape than me but they don’t have the advantage of youth. Also they are all waaaaay more in touch with their sexuality than I am. I feel like I’m cheating. I feel, not ashamed of my youth, but that I need to step up my game if I’m going to look half as good as they do once I reach their level. Of course what comes out is ‘you look amazing for your age’ which is the shittiest, douchiest, most backhanded ‘complement’ known to woman.

Oops.

Also: you get a two-fear this week since I missed last week’s posting time. Sorry.