Originally published 7/16/13
It is 4:30am and the chef walks through my doors. They are large and swing freely, never locked in over eighty five years. There was a time when the less savory ladies of a shared profession used to wait about here, drinking cocktails and waiting for phone calls for a few minutes of ‘service.’ I imagine them in flapper style dresses, but old ones, Gatsby’s hand-me-downs. Perhaps the liquor holds them together, perhaps ambition, hard to come by in such a man’s world. A million moments have passed since then, all with a unique place in time, full of people’s experiences of which I will never know. It sounds profound, but really it’s simply a series of words with only the meaning given them which varies from person to person.
The night has passed uneventfully. I’ve read my favorite web comics and caught up on funny pictures and photos of cats for the night. Now I’m free to write in my sleep deprived state of things that make me feel smart, regardless of the truth therein. I am mocked by the book I intended to read, having been writing about myself all night, my imagined readers a poor substitute for real human interaction. I’m not alone here. I have others through the night, the same weary few who stand watch through the night against vagrants and fire and the insidious fingers of tiredness.
I have a good friend, my best friend, with whom I have long and involved conversations about sex. I have conversations about sex with all my friends. I am, in fact, the one who has to be reminded that loudly extolling the virtues of the cock in a family friendly restaurant is inappropriate and I should stop. I usually do. For a while. I can’t seem to help myself. Human sexuality is incredibly fascinating. The mating dance we have created over the years that becomes more and more complex though we don’t know why. The loud complaining from both sides of the gender spectrum about ‘oppression’ and ‘friend zoning’ and all those misinterpreted behaviors. I recently did a Q&A session on a popular website and had several different types of reactions, mostly what you would expect. A few people telling me what an awful person I was, that I would do what I do, regardless of the fact that I love it. Others trying to make jokes or dismissing me as a second class person for whatever reason. A few souls asking genuine questions for the answers, not the rhetorical effect. Overall I was pleased that it was done, but I wished there were more opportunities for it. I feel as though there’s something great we do here as providers and I wish more people were open minded enough to consider the possibility that it isn’t as wrong as they think it is and that some of those were malleable enough to accept and flow into the new mindset.
I have learned so much. During my time as a dancer, I learned to appreciate beauty in all shapes and sizes. That’s not some cliche to allow for people who fall outside today’s parameters of physical attributes to be attractive, it’s truly something i discovered when I watched a clumsy single mother who looks unhealthily out of shape slither onto the stage and turn men’s bones to water (except that one, of course) with the way she moved and the was she held herself. I watched a girl with comically short, neon hair and a little round belly shimmy to the top of a pole in a surprisingly athletic maneuver and twist herself into a knot of lush sex appeal. These women knew something about themselves that empowered them. There are such complaints from women about how unfair the world is to us. We get paid less, we’re expected to live at home, our options are narrower than men’s and we’re in constant danger from sexually charged and frustrated men. You wouldn’t imagine that these young, and not so young, women who could demand the attention and respect of the room could be trapped. They knew who they were and why they chose this life. Until they walked out of the club. All that surety and command over their sex went out the window when they reentered the ‘real’ world and gave away all that power and sex because they’re told to. It opened my eyes to a way of looking at oneself and others that saw unconventional attributes as sexy and sexual. It was a critical step in my ability to see the roguish young chap in every man who seeks me out. He has spirit and fire. The twinkle in his eye and his almost childish desire to please makes him sexy and sexual. He has a desire for me and that makes me feel sexy and the sexier I feel the more eager I am to make him feel the same way. It’s a positive feedback loop that ends in a tangle of limbs and sweat and sheets and panting breaths.
I’ve been asked “how can you do it? They’re strangers.” My answer is complex. Before all else, we become not strangers. We meet, we talk together and learn a little about each other. What do you like? What is your story? Let us begin to learn about each other and find that spark that lights the bunsen burner. We haven’t quite found the chemical reaction yet, but it’s beginning to heat up. By the time we’re in bed together, we’ve formed the rudiments of a relationship. Because there is no pressure, the relationship is candid. It’s interesting: some details are forbidden. Where I live, who your family is, even my name is obscured. Other details are on display, we make ourselves vulnerable. You can see the flaws on my skin. There’s a spot I missed when shaving my legs this morning. Your moles you used to be self conscious about but you’ve lived with them long enough and seen enough other naked people that you no longer give a shit. The faces we make in the throes of passion and the sounds we make in a moment of ecstasy. In the minutes after, when we’re cooling off and catching our breath, my head snuggles into your shoulder and we take comfort in the contact between humans, physical and emotional. So that’s my answer: I don’t sleep with strangers. I make friends and I take care of them.
It’s been said, primarily by those who wish to restrict sexuality to parameters defined in the 40th century B.C., that when two people make love there is an emotional bond forged that is sacred. They cite studies that show increases in hormones that cause good feelings and those feeling end up solidifying relationships regardless of intent. I agree that a powerful sexual experience will bring me back for more, and there have been several times when what began as an innocent lay became a much more complicated and demanding relationship. However, provided the sturdy framework of an economic relationship and a degree of professionalism, a powerful sexual experience can retain that pristine, raw power without being diluted by politeness and restraint. A relationship that can handle those powerful experiences and remain honest with itself is rare and valuable. Until recently I was unaware that was even possible. In any case, there is an emotional reaction, but it is tempered significantly by the needs of the two parties. This is also how I manage to sleep with relative strangers: the emotional bonds are so precisely defined that there is no need to worry about who is hurting whom’s feelings or what you’ll do for dinner. You can feel that emotion with no need for guilt or halfway measures, because it is contained and confined and safe.
I’ve had few to no negative reactions from my friends. They are as sexually open as I am and heartily approve of taking advantage of my youth and relative beauty. None of them would choose this life, for one reason or another, but they are neither surprised nor upset by my choices. My mother, on the other hand… She is an intelligent woman, world wise, perceptive, and able to read her daughter like an open book. After a few conversations with dangerous and unwitting allusions to my life choices, we were faced with a five hour drive together. We both knew, and I knew she knew, but I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to say anything. No matter how old and self sufficient you get, Mom will always be scary as shit. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll still love you, always.” she says as in my head I’m repeating the words I plan to say. I never got the chance to say them. For the next hour I listen to what could be the plot of a CSI:SVU episode, starring my mother, the moon of my life who does her best to keep my tides stable but was once an angry runaway who believed sex was all she had to offer. One summer had shaped her entire life. Without it my father would never have met her, they definitely wouldn’t have married, and they wouldn’t have driven each other to infidelity. Repeatedly. Despite their quite reasonable dislike for each other, they stayed together and thirty years later are no longer enemies. You could call this a success story. It could have as easily been a tragedy and in some ways it was. So now I know why she thinks the worst of those I choose to spend time with. I know why I disappoint her. Don’t we all wish our children wouldn’t make our mistakes? I don’t think it’s a mistake. Of course that could simply be the arrogance of youth. The young, naive child who sees the world through rose tinted glasses is headed for disaster and all you, the parent, can do is watch and hope to be close enough to pick up the pieces. One of my resolutions some years back has been to only regret the things you regret while you’re doing them. If I’m in the middle of something and I enjoy myself, in ten years when I wish I hadn’t done it, I refuse to regret it. I choose to learn and move on without tying myself to the millstones of the past. Now if I’m doing something and thinking “this is the wort thing you could be doing in this situation” then yes, I’m going to look back on it with chagrin and perhaps regret. I can count those instances on one hand. Not one of them are the result of my interactions with the kind, solicitous gentlemen I meet professionally. I have been consistently impressed by what we learn together and what I have learned about myself.