New Year’s Day is everyman’s birthday. – Charles Lamb
On three recent occasions (two of which I’ve reported in columns) I’ve been attacked by people who complain that I’m not using the “correct” words, or thinking the “correct” thoughts, or being “inclusive” enough. Clearly, these people are laboring under a severe misapprehension about what I’m trying to do here, and since today is a day for new beginnings I can’t think of a better time to restate it. The complaints seem to proceed from the assumption that this is a “sex worker rights blog,” which it is not; if it were, why would I have done columns on Barbie dolls, historical courtesans, restaurants, funny stories, animal hookers, movies and Santa Claus? I talk about prostitutes’ rights because I’m interested in the subject, but the blog is no more centered on sex worker rights than it is on hagiography. And the sad thing is, if these people had bothered to read my introduction (see the tab right up there between “Filmography” and “Quotes”?) they would already have known that. Here’s an excerpt which spells it out pretty clearly:
What I am here to do is attempt to give my reader a new perspective on how some women make a living, and perhaps to show you that we’re not so different from any other women you might know. That having been said, I’m not trying to tell you that all prostitutes are the same; that would be absurd. We are no more or less like each other than are nurses, or teachers, or housewives, or students…
This site is… about me. Modern critical theory holds that a work of literature cannot be separated from its author; whether you believe that or not, I’m not even going to make the attempt. I cannot speak for any other woman, describe her experiences, or know how she feels about being a prostitute or why she does it. Nor can I speak for any man to tell you why he hires a prostitute and what he thinks about her. All I can tell you is what I feel and felt, what I think, what I observe. I can and will tell you how and why I became a prostitute, what some of my memorable experiences were, and why I don’t do it any more. I can also tell you what I saw other girls do, what they said to me and my impressions of what they felt at the time; furthermore, I can tell you what clients did and said and my opinion as to what they were about and why…
[This blog] is a podium (wits among you might consider “pulpit” a more appropriate term) from which I can talk about how I see the world, through the lens of my experiences as a call girl. I’ll comment on various aspects of the subject of human sexuality as I see it, give a whore’s-eye view on current events (including virtual slaps in the face to girls who violate professional ethics), and point out the bias built in to nearly every mainstream article about prostitutes. Sometimes I may talk about my experiences in “the life”, including how I started and what I did before and since. I may tell you a little about the history of the profession and my philosophy of it, as well as the opinions of other girls I’ve talked to about it. Sometimes I’ll tell you about the men and women I’ve met through the profession, including those I wish I hadn’t met, and what I think and feel about them. I’ll talk about where I think prostitutes fit in society, why men come to us (it’s not always what you think), and how non-professional women can use this knowledge to their advantage. I’ll also make some educated guesses on why Americans have such a weird love/hate relationship with us. Along the way, I’ll also write about a lot of other stuff which is not strictly on the subject but is inextricably bound up with it in my head.
I don’t find that at all confusing, do you? In fact, I think you’ll agree that for the past six months I’ve been doing exactly what I describe there. This blog is highly personal; all subjective information in it comes out of my own head and nobody else’s. I was a call girl and madam in New Orleans, so the only personal experiences I’m qualified to discuss are those pertaining to that sphere. I’ve never been a streetwalker, a massage parlor girl, a big city escort, a legal prostitute, a male prostitute, a transgender prostitute, a party girl, a sugar baby, a client, a porn star, a Nevada brothel worker, a pimp, a politician, a trafficking alarmist, a cop or a crack whore, so I can’t tell you anything about the thoughts that might run through the heads of any of those people except for what I can deduce from their words or behavior; anything more would be mere speculation.
Furthermore, notice the name of my site, The Honest Courtesan, and its subtitle, “Frank Commentary from a Retired Call Girl.” I think that describes the contents of this blog pretty well. Note that it is not called The Politically Correct Sex Worker, subtitled “Approved Rhetoric from a Cisgender Womon”. The very name of my column promises my honest opinions, unfiltered by dogma and undisguised by the latest trendy euphemisms. Though I haven’t worked as a librarian for over 15 years I haven’t lost my love for language and well-constructed writing, and I refuse to replace perfectly good words with ugly, cumbersome, polysyllabic abortions which are designed to obscure the truth with a cloak of vagueness, or to clutter good English sentences with a host of qualifiers, de-intensifiers, weasel-words and apologetics intended to sap the strength of the text like a school of lampreys attached to a shark. I’m not going to encumber my essays with parenthetical comments noting minor exceptions to broad rules in order to support fantasyland notion of “fairness”; neither will I subscribe to common misuses like “their” as a singular pronoun or “homophobia” to mean “opposition to any single thing any gay rights activist proposes”. I also refuse to employ neologisms like “cisgender” unless I’m specifically referring to people who aren’t transgendered. News flash: The vast majority of the human race is “cisgendered”, so it isn’t necessary to specify it. What’s next on the PC agenda, a special word to signify that a person isn’t handicapped? How about one to indicate that a person is of relatively average height and weight? It isn’t necessary to constantly include every adjective describing every way in which a given person isn’t unusual; we assume the usual unless something different is specified, not vice-versa.
Queer activists have forgotten what the word “queer” means. It doesn’t mean “totally normal just like everybody else”; it means strange, weird, odd. Whatever the hell happened to “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it?” Tolerance isn’t about pretending everybody is normal; it’s about accepting people who don’t hurt others even if they ARE abnormal. And before anyone gets incensed about my using the word “abnormal”, consider for a moment how normal you think an exhibitionistic, bisexual, sexually submissive, ex-librarian, retired hooker, witch and writer who lives in a rural part of the Bible Belt might be. I was abnormal long before I entered harlotry; hell, it might be the most normal thing about me! I have never changed myself in order to fit in with any group, and I never will; even as an escort I was always myself. This blog is a vehicle for my personal expression; it belongs to me and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anybody tell me what to say or how to say it. You want a groupthink, lock-step leftist sex worker blog? Write it yourself; you have no right to command my talents to serve your ends. I’ve never let myself be pimped in the past, and I’m not about to start now.
I like reading your blog, and take note of what you say. I admire anyone for speaking honestly in this business which is what I always do.
I agree with you regarding your blog being a vehicle for your own personal expression. Where we differ is that for every publication spouting rubbish about prostitution, there are always the ladies representing the minority of sex workers – ladies with a choice such as you and I who say it is not so.
The majority of sex workers are not like us. There are thousands of women who are pimped, trafficked and coerced, and until that ceases to be, until we as indies in charge of our own lives stop providing the umbrella from which these evils continue, I will not defend my profession and I consider my right to work as a prostitute to be a privilege and not a right.
While there is one woman being made to work against her will for the financial benefit of someone else, I will be ashamed of my profession. This is not to say I hate my job, because I don’t, or I would not still be here.
I find your blog to be thought provoking. Thanks x
Thank you, Sarah! Though there are many women who are in this business against their will (whether due to coercion or necessity), they are definitely in the minority; every worthwhile study shows that, and certainly our own observations agree with it. I also definitely disagree with you that it is us who are providing the “umbrella” to hide evil; it is the law which does that. Light is the enemy of evil, and as long as prohibitionist laws push us into the dark that evil will flourish. During the Prohibition Era in the United States those who bought watered liquor or that mixed with poisonous methanol could not report those who sold it to them, but when it became legal again such criminals disappeared. Similarly, in jurisdictions where stripping was illegal women were often exploited, but now such exploitation can be reported. The same is true of our profession; pimped or trafficked women cannot get help because they are afraid of the law, but if our profession were legal the evil would be driven out. In other words you needn’t be ashamed of our profession, but rather of the evil governments which enforce a climate which protects evil men who exploit us.
Generally like this post, especially the point about tolerance–it is about difference, not sameness.
On your musings about language that obfuscates, if you do not already know it, you should look at Orwell’s classic, “Politics and the English Language.” (e.g. “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”)
On the detail about terms for the majority from a disabled perspective, there is such a phrase, “Temporarily able bodied” or TAB’s. I am not disabled, but I get a kick out of my disabled friends describing me with that term.
Thank you, Paul! It’s funny you mention Orwell, because my column for this coming Tuesday (1/4) is entitled “Doublethink” and mentions him prominently. 🙂
You want a groupthink, lock-step leftist sex worker blog? Write it yourself; you have no right to command my talents to serve your ends. I’ve never let myself be pimped in the past, and I’m not about to start now.
Which, believe me, is one of the most refreshing things for me to hear in the whole blogosphere! Kudos for defending your viewpoint; any person who does that, and in as clear and thought-provoking a manner as you have chosen to do, is the kind of person we need more of in this world.
People who want to be “normal” aren’t necessarily trying to drown their differences and go mainstream, or then ashamed of their “abnormality”; sometimes, as we once discussed, they are simply trying to show that the stereotypes they are supposed to be — often portraying them as “harmful” or “dangerous” — aren’t correct. They may be trying to say that being abnormal doesn’t mean they don’t pay taxes, or struggle to make ends meet, or laugh at jokes, or like Christmas, or were outraged by 9/11.
This because “normal” doesn’t simply mean “no different from the others,” but “not significantly different from the others.” Vive les différences!
But even these people often forget the “significantly,” and think that they have to claim they are not different. Since they obviously are, this makes them use some form of doublethink, or then to lie to themselves. To say nothing of those who started out already doublethinking or lying to themselves.
Thank you, Asehpe; I just wish everyone expressed his own opinions instead of saying what they think others want to hear! 🙂
News flash: The vast majority of the human race is “cisgendered”, so it isn’t necessary to specify it.
I think you go a little too far. Usually it isn’t necessary to specify it, but there are contexts where it is a useful way to save time from saying “non-transgendered” and get extra precision from “normal.” Just like it is occasionally useful to be able to say “straight” or “able-bodied” (which is a specific word that is often used to mean “not handicapped,” as in your rhetorical question).
Of course, I understand the whole point of this post is to express frustration with people wanting your blog to be about their favorite issues.
Yes, I would agree with that. If one were in a conversation about transsexuals and wanted to mention someone who was not, “cisgendered” or something like it could come in handy. But you’re right about the frustration; just the other day I saw someone insisting that every use of the word “women” in any sex worker blog had to be followed by a parenthetical “including transgender women.” Good grief! 🙁
Marilore, I understand your point; it is, however, true that actually specifying the contexts you talk about can be difficult. In general terms, any context in which the cis-trans distinction might matter; but since “matter” is often in the eye of the beholder or can be a question of polical orientation or activist self-identification, one does often see a certain overuse of the term for the specific purpose of being able to claim inclusivity, for political expediency. In a curious way, this may be as offensive for transgenders and bad for the interests of their community as those surprised looks and gossipping voices they still so often get when they say they are transgenders.
I’ve only met a few transsexuals over the years (the term “transgender” is too vague and broad to be useful since it includes drag queens and cross-dressers), and most of them would prefer just to live quietly as members of their internal sex without having to identify as transsexuals. As one of them told me, having to live forever more with the label “transgendered” would defeat the purpose of going through all she had to go through to get where she was going. 🙁
I also met one such person, a male transsexual, and he said the very same thing. The only reason why I knew about him is that someone ‘outed’ him at some point and people started gossipping; he had to put up with a lot of prejudice. If this hadn’t happened I would never had known: there was nothing particularly ‘feminine’ about him.
The justification that activists give (and there is some reason behind that) is that if they don’t fight for the acceptance of transsexuals, they’d be accepting a situation with downsides similar to DADT in the military: even if one hides one’s past, things have a way of unexpectedly becoming known, and a person’s life, career, respectability etc. would suddenly end.
So some people say ‘cis-gendered’ as a way to advertise the fact that they would never think evil of someone should it become known that s/he was born as a member of the opposite sex. There is something good in that. Alas, this can also be exaggerated and create problems (remember the ‘Conjoined Fetus Lady‘ episode in Season 2 of South Park?). In medio veritas…
Everyone likes diversity so long as those diverse people don’t act or think too differently from everyone else.
Sad but true. “Diversity” in the PC sense means different skin colors and sexual orientations, but not women who cover their heads, practice prostitution or otherwise offend the neofeminist catechism. 🙁
For the love! YOU ROCK and everyone knows it! Let us remember a general purpose for blogs and discussions which is to share ideas and OPINIONS. It should not be for the purpose of reinforcing another persons personal beliefs, it should be to make you think – to make you consider where others are coming from, to understand why some people think the way they do, to expand your own horizons and give you ideas you may have not come up with on your own.
I don’t mind when people disagree with me as long as they tell me why. Then I can tell them why I disagree. Thus is born discussion and a chance for me to learn and hopefully for them to learn. Learning and understanding and communicating breeds tolerance. The less people understand about sex-workers the less they tolerate them. The more sex-workers who blog and give opinions the more people may think “Oh I think I may see your point here” and start to recognize us as human beings and that we are who we are and not necessarily just what we do – which should (and I reiterate should) go more towards tolerance and understanding us as just normal people too.
Sorry for the verbage vomitus there but keep on keeping on Ms. McNeil. I for one appreciate your candor, thoughts, and opinions – even though when I read your blog I sometimes need a dictionary close by LOL.
Wow, Brandy, thank you so much! I am grinning from ear to ear! 😀
Damn straight….no pun intended. LOL
😀
I’m surprised by the number of posts where I didn’t say ANYTHING! Which means I wasn’t subscribed to this post, and didn’t get e-mail every time somebody said something new.
But I will now. 😉