the truth is, I slunk down the fire escape,
having stalled taking the trash out
until seven in the morning
with the sun over the roofline,
and all that drove me
was the fear of the truck’s early rumble;
other than that, I wanted to go to bed.

if there are magic spells
they are colors.

the back yard is unlovely. sunlight tangles
in the holly branches, rarely touches the ground.
erosion control sheets are dull black stripes
half-hidden in dry leaves the color of dust,
rustling sharp underfoot
like steps into a closed-off room.
no one rakes them. the trash cans
are sometimes host to rats. one year
the people below me
left the lid off their bin in a pouring rainstorm
resulting in trash soup. and later, once the trash collectors
refused to pick it up for months, trash gelatin.
often there is standing water
breeding maggots. one has to tip it out
carefully, leaving space to dodge.

the motion of trash bag
into can takes place robotically.
standard transfer:
check.
go inside:
initiating.

the turn of my head
is my undoing. morning glories
purple as heart’s blood, centered white
like a degenerate star, purple
richer than Tyrian, redder than violet,
keener than a needle through the skin,
oh, purple! twisted through
the rusted chain link fence, now russet
against that shade, the spade leaves
green like dawn in a deep cool woods. glory!
weeds and clover colonize
the sunlight ground along the fence
in plush patches.
one could sink in like a featherbed
and keep sinking, deep underground. I go up
the fire escape, twisting under
the holly branches, accepting the scores -
one cannot avoid scratches in a holly tree
unless you are light and crafty like the starlings
or slow and small and patient
like the garden spider, yellow-stockinged
and hopeful as Malvolio, still in the center
of a magnificent web, two feet across,
adorned with the night’s captures
neatly packaged, which did not include
the mosquito biting me on the arm.
the meandering curves of the holly limbs
are half-obscured by waxy leaves. and below,
the moss wins at tic-tac-toe
on nine square red tiles.
and I stand in a trance, eyes heavy
but shot through with adrenaline, heart pounding
from purple, purple washing through my head
like falling in love, sharp as a cane stroke,
too robust for petals
and too exquisite
for anything else in the world.

a cat-chewed plant
adorns the sill.

and out the window
are two holly trees
where live:
a mob of starlings
some mockingbirds (or perhaps catbirds)
some robins
with their joyful noise
the pilgrim mourning doves
harsh-voiced cicadas for the afternoon
crickets at night
too many stinkbugs at all hours

behind that is an alley
where rats live and creep into the trash cans
there’s a park close by
where small children shriek in their games
and dogs bark.

my sunroom faces east, so the evening light
creeps up the holly branches, gold-green in their glory,
to green dark as secrets against the sky,
which is exactly as blue
as blue raspberry,
blue brighter even
than the visiting jays.

ramen for dinner, oatmeal for breakfast,
saving the last of the hotdogs – work
would be fine if my body cooperated, but
it hasn’t lately – bills due, cat
pooped twice on the kitchen floor, gotta
worry over politics, worry about my body
coopted by the law, worry-should-I-tell-my-folks,
ice caps melting, three wars under the rug,
petty jealousies, that old carpal tunnel
acting up from an antique vibrator
(last work I had), this brain of mine
built on a steep slope, this world
of never-enough and too-much -

but even so, I am fortunate
to sit and read and write silly poems
as the green deepens in the holly trees,
my holly trees as much as they’re anyone’s,
belonging less to me than
that mob of starlings
and the mockingbirds (unless they are catbirds)
and the robins with their joyful noise
and the pilgrim mourning doves
and the harshvoiced cicadas in the afteroon
and the crickets at night
and even those dratted stinkbugs
those eternal stinkbugs – but mine,
still mine, bought with a piece of my heart
buried under the roots,
these holly trees!

I wonder how many of these people break their bleeding hearts over, say, sewer workers, who also have dangerous and sometimes distasteful jobs requiring a wide-ranging set of skills, and who probably didn’t turn down a line of highly-paid positions in other fields. It’s easy to think of human outliers that would be particularly suited to this work, which generally pays a middle-class salary. There are people with little-to-no sense of smell, for example, or who are exceptionally good at orienting themselves underground. One can even imagine “sewer geeks,” who are interested in waste removal – the mind boggles at the amount of waste that flows through a large city, and the necessity of doing something with it before it starts a plague.

Of course, this is just me making guesses from the limited knowledge I have of sewers and the somewhat-less-limited knowledge of human variety.

With a teensy bit more effort, a google search reveals that sewer workers often are unionized, that accidents and disease exposure are a hazard of the job, and that, like many employees of city governments feeling the pinch of the modern depression, they are irked at their stagnant wages and the difficulty in funding such necessary, unglamorous infrastructure.

The vast majority of people did not aspire to be sewer workers, or might prefer some other job, but do we say they’re coerced? Is “I need a job, I find this one to be the best available to me” economic coercion? Are we going to make that leap and paint everyone who works an often-unpleasant or dangerous job as a victim? Will we spend, spend, spend on campaigns to make their jobs harder, or “take them into custody” for their own good?

What happens when the sewer backs up, then? There’s clearly a need for somebody to go down there and fix it. Now we have black- or gray-market sewer workers who have to charge more for their risk in breaking the law. Their jobs would be a lot more dangerous, since a fly-by-night sewer repair probably couldn’t bring in a lot of safety equipment, and their machinery might not be perfectly maintained. They might not be able to provide health insurance or other benefits, and they couldn’t get together to share knowledge and improve their work. Information on sewer repair companies would be difficult to find and heavily coded in an attempt to ward off law enforcement; ripoffs and sketchy, even abusive behavior might go unexposed and unpunished on both sides.

You see my point, of course.

The fact is that yes, if I magically had enough money to last me the rest of my days, I would quit sex work, or only do it for charity or super-intriguing artistic endeavors, or something like that. I am a sex worker ultimately because I have bills to pay and things I want to do which require money. If I had could just type “motherlode” into the little text box that floats above my house, thus immediately filling my coffers with as much money as I could need, repeatable anytime, I’d quit and stay home in a house stuffed with old books, fresh fruit, and piles of afghans for my cats to nest in. Also, a sweet-ass loft bed with a big wall cupboard (for KINKY IMPLEMENTS) and lots of attachment points, and then I’d have to get down with one of those poles they have in fire stations! And I guess I’d give lots of money for general world-improvement, although me having (and distributing) infinite money might have some bizarre effects on world economies, so maybe that would be unwise, but still, a FIRE POLE and KINKY CUPBOARD BED.

(I could put a fuck sling underneath it, people!)

Sadly, Sims codes do not work in real life, so I have to have a job, and I do not have a sweet-ass loft bed. My bedroom is pretty much the standard Ikea bed, craigslist dresser, tupperware nightstand; maybe someday I’ll have fancier furniture, but it doesn’t bother me in the meantime. Tangent over.

I feel pretty lucky in that I often enjoy my job. I seem to be naturally well-suited for it, and beyond that, I’ve stayed challenged and learned a lot of social skills. I can’t overstate how much the practice of these skills has helped me socially, emotionally, philosophically… To be quite frank, I was a mess before. This is much better.

Even when my job involves unpleasant sensory input – and it does far less than people imagine - I take professional pride in my work. I think sexuality is important, that is is inextricably wound up in our minds and bodies, and that, like many aspects of our being, it cannot be healthily suppressed but can be directed in a way that gives pleasure to the individuals involved.

There have been times when I’ve been on the butt end of some shitty power dynamics at work, but not more than off the clock, and I’ve frequently been aware of having power over the other person in the room. That last part reminds me to hold people’s hearts in a light grip.

I see people who are terribly vulnerable at times, and I make it my mission to treat them delicately and help them in the ways they need. I see people who have their sap running hot in their veins,  people looking for someone to join in their bacchanals, and I rejoice with them while keeping an eye on pragmatic concerns. I handhold the shy, and offer my ear to the lonely, and wash the backs of people far from home and family. In the process, I’ve had to revise a lot of the stereotypes I’d learned about men, as I found most of them are not true.

A brief interruption:

STEREOTYPES ABOUT MEN ARE AS CRAPPY AS STEREOTYPES ABOUT WOMEN, IN DIFFERENT BUT COMPLEMENTARY WAYS.

Ok, newsflash over.

Christ almighty, I don’t have to work in an office. The last time I visited my parents’ house, I found an old assignment on Dante’s Inferno where I’d taken the creative option of writing one’s own Inferno. Mine had some pretty styling use of extended metaphor: I’d described a hellish beehive swarming with activity, in which papers were constantly recycled from honeycomb In cell to Out cell. Bear in mind that I utterly forgot about this assignment until I found it in the closet. It gave me the willies, no lie. No office work for me, thanks, I had enough institutional sitting-and-filling-out-forms in school.

What else? I’ve got a whore fetish a mile wide. Many of my childhood fantasies revolved around getting paid, and it still revs my ever-growling motor. Ages before I had PIV intercourse for the first time (when I was 17 and dating someone I really liked), I got myself off at night to the idea of selling my virginity to three wealthy men, who would thoroughly “initiate” me into sexuality, and also with some bondage and a bathing scene and yeah, a lot of teenage furtive obsessing.

I’ve also got mental illness stuff going on that, a few times a year, renders me flattened. Traditional jobs don’t allow for that. With the flexibility of sex work, of course, is the downside of not having a guaranteed income. I’ve been making ends meet, although I sometimes have to scrounge. With the time available for the mental debugging that keeps me on an even keel, I’m managing my depression  without slipping into the deep, prolonged lows that drove me to attempt suicide as a teen. I’m much less anxious about myself – LESS, people who know me – and the anxiety doesn’t cripple my ability to do simple tasks. I’m no longer getting PTSD symptoms. I’ve gotten very good at negotiating my boundaries while fostering trust and intimacy, and it shows up in my personal and romantic relationships.

My partners and many friends know and support my career, and we’re all careful about our sexual health – I was just doing my summertime health checkup and testing with my sir, and let me tell you, going to the STI clinic with a trusted companion beats the hell out of doing it by yourself. Plus, I’ve been branching out into other kinds of sex work, so I’ve been only seeing my regulars. (Regulars are, as I’ve mentioned before, the least stressful and most rewarding of my clients.)

And I’ve had time to read, and think, and write, and visit with people, and take walks, and learn about this interesting world. Sometimes I learn things at work that are so interesting that I chew them over all day. My experience has broadened considerably, although I’m still a hermitish homebody with Too Many Cats.

There’s plenty of days when I just don’t want to go to work, where I’m tired or bored or getting a cramp in my leg. After all, even the best job isn’t as much fun as reading The Count of Monte Cristo in the sunroom while the birds whistle and chatter in the holly tree.

Legal and political hazards abound, particularly since the mainstream, anti-sexwork arm of feminism has teamed up with conservative gender roles proponents to demonize us and our industry. I don’t want to be harassed by the police, which is always a possibility, although I sell my time and not sex acts to stay on the good side of the law. When the morality police come to bust down your door (if you’re lucky and they don’t rape you through deception first), the letter of the law is a slight guardian.

The stigma against sex workers distresses me, as does the notion that we’re all damaged people. This is especially painful as I suffer from mental illness – it’s a twofer stereotype, insulting the mentally-ill or traumatized by calling them (euuuuw) whores, and insulting sex workers by calling them (euuuuw) crazy people.

Equally upsetting is the “So tell me how your father molested you” reaction. Do you think I’m going to be anything less than spitting mad when someone calls my father, a good man who loves and cares for his children with all his might, a child molester? Are you sick, or just so used to slinging that application that you forget that I’m a real person, and my Dad is a real person? Your little just-so story of how a Nice Girl Could Go So Wrong is heinously presumptuous and makes me see red.

How about the idea that all sex workers are stupid, “bitchy,” or vapid, or that sex work isn’t a “real job”? Way to insult the many talented, caring, intelligent, hardworking sex workers I’ve met and cared for. Way to insult me.

Then there’s the fear. A serial killer is still murdering Sex Workers on Long Island. Sex workers are favorite targets of violent crime, perhaps because we’re seen as disposable, and a call to police is unlikely to produce an officer who cares about crimes done to one society’s untouchables. We’re prevented from organizing to ensure our safety. We’re prevented from negotiating upfront for fear of arrest, although everyone knows that a cop will fuck you and then arrest you anyway. We have to worry about being “vanished” both by criminals and the law.

These comments, these attitudes, these laws are everywhere, among the majority who use sex workers’ services in some way and the tiny minority that doesn’t. Every one of those comments stings like those horsefly bites that welt up immediately and throb for days. They’re like tripwires embedded into culture, appearing in the words of a new acquaintance talking about dumb strippers or having a hooker in the trunk of their car. Gets you right at throat level and knocks the air out of the conversation.

Ahem.

So, yes, I am ECONOMICALLY COERCED: I must have a job to live independently and take care of my rather modest needs. I do not have the infinite money cheat. Nor am I a defense contractor, but then I repeat myself. I am unsuited for a lot of jobs due to various factors in my life. I chose the work that best suited my needs.*** If that’s economic coercion, why are you picking on me? Turn a couple pages in the problematic-jobs dictionary and campaign for garment workers, or retail employees, or farm laborers, or sewer workers. Especially sewer workers. If any read this, please accept my sympathy. Earning a day’s wages obliges one to put up with a lot of shit.

*As a young feminist who has done my level best to listen to the viewpoints of others, even when I disagree with them, it has been disheartening to be pushed out of feminist blogs. When I’ve commented with a sex worker’s perspective, I’ve been accused of lying, being brainwashed by the patriarchy, or being too privileged to represent sex workers. In actuality, I am not unusual among sex workers – my rates are very slightly above average for my city, which I find justified by my commitment to my work and my near-universal positive feedback. As for the brainwashed-by-the-patriarchy part: you really think the patriarchy wants me to be happy and in control of my body and time?

No, the patriarchy** and the abolitionist feminists are in cahoots to crush my rights and reshackle me with that wife-and-mother aspirant middle-class thing I’m supposed to want, and so they want to take away my means of earning an independent living, my means of managing my mental health challenges, and my rights to bodily integrity and equal protection.

**The cool kids say “kyriarchy” now, anyway.

***I’m aware that this is going to get me a lot of “you don’t know what it’s like to be economically coerced because you wouldn’t have to live in a box under a bridge if you didn’t have a job, you Privilege McPrivilegedperson” comments. It’s true, I am privileged, and there are people who are trapped selling sex as a survival tactic: for example, a minor trading sex for a place to stay when escaping an abusive home life. Two points: a) No twisting my words to mean I don’t care when people have (or are manipulated into thinking they have) zero options, and in fact I think that has mega consent issues, but where else are these kids going to go? Maybe if we funded shelters and DFACS across the country, perhaps with the money we’d save by getting out of three useless wars, those teens would not be trading sex for shelter. b) As ethically tangled and potentially exploitative as survival sex can be, GETTING SHAMED, OSTRACIZED, AND/OR ARRESTED DOES NOT HELP. Sex workers should have the right to switch careers freely if they are unhappy, or receive aid from the law in an abusive work situation, the same as everyone else.

from your bedroom window, the rain flows by
in herringbone patterns along the road by the curb.
the wet jewel-toned cars
have wings at their feet Mercury would’ve envied.
dry inside their bellies, people are coming home from work,
thinking about dinner.

the exquisite salt
of a thousand shoulders

the answer written
in the slackening of jaws

the augury of that which shudders
like bird’s breast against cupping hands

I repay your cherished cruelty
with tenderness.
rub oil into your feet,
press out that which crunches
in your calf muscles. I tear off
pieces of garlic naan
to cushion the tylenol. you take them
from my fingers as if your teeth
never sank into the soft part
between my thighs.

I proffer two pills as you make
great clumsy swipes with the towel.
you swallow them very nicely.
you blink and shiver. my heart contracts,
my proud-laid-low dearest,
it presses more than I can bear.

what else can I do but tuck you into bed?
you want the comforter -
it’s high summer. no a/c. if you were very small
I would bundle you in blankets
and rock you in my arms. instead
I wash the dishes, brush kisses on your cheek,
and more times than absolutely necessary
say goodnight.

you broke the ancient bottle
of your grandfather’s rum
and bled across the porch.
it was important to you and I am sorry.
perhaps if it happened to someone else,
you’da seen it as apropos:
that sweet bitter burn of a smell
lingering under the awning
in front of the apartment we’d shared
like your calling card…

Christ. I wish you’d left
the first time I asked in April, before
bitterness hung months in the air between us
like the hiss of the runoff track
after the last song.

Oh! America
you slander me
who love you
as a daughter.

you cannot
be aught
but home
to me.

America! I pray
with child’s fervor:
awake from this dementia -

I know no signs to avert
this evil eye, this spur
cutting deep in your flank.

Part 2: “The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

oh, America, do not demand
my blind love.
even a dog
does not love that way.

America, I sympathize:
I too have fallen short,
listened to flattery,
howled mad into the storm.

America, I too have spurned
those who loved my best self.
I too have forgotten my best self,
sunk into sullen dread,
roused only by
fear and cruel passions.

Part 3: *full of passionate intensity*

America!
Your butchershop history’s threaded
by a silver wire of justice, running
through persons flawed as any,
whispering words like “freedom”
and “equality” in their ears.
I do not know if the thread
will bear your weight in these swollen times -
it must, it must!

- Wow, we’re supposed to be grossed out because the women are older and normal-looking? NEWSFLASH: Most sex happens between people who are not hot 21-year-olds with tons of makeup and fancy underpants on! People get older. People have wrinkles and places where their bodies sag. People wear granny-panties! This does not make them disgusting, nor is fucking them some horrible, gorge-rising experience.

- Do we not already have enough trouble with the whole “oral sex on a penis is awesome and expected, oral sex on a vulva is gross and icky and a favor someone does for you” thing?

- Wow, Mr. Pretend Sex Worker has crappy customer service. He just stares at his clients, doesn’t make small talk or even say hello, doesn’t do anything but stick his face between their legs.

- Dude, I like the Wolverine look you have going on, but seriously, a full night’s sleep before work would improve things greatly.

- STOP BRUSHING YOUR TEETH AT WORK. Holy shit! Don’t you know anything? Brushing can cause microtears, making you more vulnerable to catching an infection! Use mouthwash! Christ!

- “If I had to have sex with strangers ten times a day for a living, at what point would I feel sick? From the beginning, surely.” WAY TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HOW OTHER PEOPLE FEEL. I gotta say, though, ten times a day would be a lot for me, especially with strangers. That’s why I arrange my business so I mostly have sex with people I know, and I don’t take ten appointments a day. What are you in a rush for, Faux-Wolverine? Are you trying to pay off a mortgage? Do you have an addiction that needs treatment? Spending too much on expensive styling wax for your shaggy haircut? Slow the fuck down!

- You might want to take a shower and not just wash your face.

- Love the “prostituted persons,” especially after the whole point of the video was “Euw, men, wouldn’t you hate to have to go down on women for a living?” Way to throw a bone to sex workers that don’t ID as women after ignoring them for the whole video.

- “Prostitution is a form of violence and oppression. I refuse to be party of it. What about you?” Really, where is the violence? Faux-Wolverine is staying in a decent hotel, apparently working on his own, seeing customers who are distant but polite. No one is beating him up. No one even says a rude word to him. The “violence” is in having sex that the character feels bad and “sick” about. Nobody is forcing him to do anything. Perhaps the character needs to find himself another line of work? Perhaps the working conditions need to change? (10 clients a day, goddamn!) Perhaps the clients would rather hire a sex worker who isn’t miserable working for them? I don’t normally read reviews, but I’d be interested to see what Faux-Wolverine’s clients thought about him.

- This whole scenario smacks of a common fantasy: being a sex object for lots of people, maybe lots of people you don’t find attractive. Speaking as someone who kinks hard on objectification scenarios, yum. Turn the sound off and it’s an actually decent msub porn. Hot Scruffy Man Used For Pleasure, mmm. Are we trying to cash in on the standard titillation-mixed-with-pearl-clutching-disgust anti-whore rhetoric? We certainly are! (Interesting to see that it’s just as obvious and ridiculous with swapped genders.)

the ourobouros consists of
a snake devouring its own tail.
mine is blood and bitter grist,
oh, oh the white bones –

oh. and my body wracks.
delayed by hours, at last
these spattered black lines,
these words slick on the screen.