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Posts Tagged ‘naturalness’

Unbound

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , on December 2, 2013| 41 Comments »

In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.  –  Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus Unbound by Tim OglineStarting today, my readers will have the opportunity to see me in a rather different mode.  Normally, my arguments are in the form of a monologue; though people can and do disagree with me in the comments, they aren’t writing full essays; furthermore, the readership of any blog is going to self-select towards a general zone of agreement with its author.  In other words, though most of my readers disagree with me on some points and some disagree with me on many points, very few disagree with me on most points (else they’d probably not be regular readers).  But near the end of October, Jason Kuznicki invited me to contribute the lead essay for this month’s issue of Cato Unbound; it will post today at about 11 AM Eastern Time (16:00 UTC).  About the same time Wednesday, a response essay will post, then another on Friday and one more next Monday.  For the rest of this month I and the others will then write a series of shorter essays responding to each others’ points, creating a debate in print that will conclude at the end of December.  Here’s the index of previous issues, so you can get an idea how it tends to unfold.

I would like to thank Jason for thinking enough of my writing and thinking skills to invite me to lead off the debate on this subject; I hope that I can argue my position convincingly and adequately answer the criticisms of the other writers, and that I can sway those Cato readers who aren’t necessarily predisposed toward decriminalization to see the sense and justice of it.  My lead essay is entitled “Treating Sex Work as Work”, and here’s the first paragraph:

When researchers taught capuchin monkeys how to use money, it didn’t take long for one of the male monkeys to offer a female one of the coins in exchange for sex.  Prostitution is often called “the world’s oldest profession” with good reason; it is a form of exchange that predates the human species, and has even been observed among chimpanzees.  Males tend to want sex much more frequently than most females are willing to accommodate, and where a demand exists it is inevitable that some individuals will choose to meet it for a price.  But because sex has traditionally been viewed as sacred, magical or otherwise special because of its ability to produce life, it has always been an area authoritarians felt especially compelled to enact restrictions upon; the fact that most of the sellers were female and most of the buyers male probably also had a lot to do with it, especially in pre-modern times when virtually all political power was concentrated in the hands of the client class.  We no longer live in a time when power depends upon gender, nor one in which coitus runs an uncontrollable risk of creating unwanted offspring, yet our laws regarding prostitution are still solidly anchored in the era when those conditions prevailed…

It’s about 3000 words, two to three times the length of one of my normal columns, but I don’t think you’ll get bored.  Click on over to Cato Unbound for the rest, and be sure to look in for the other contributors’ responses and the debate to follow.  Following the usual pattern, my first response should post on Thursday the 12th, and then a few more times over the next few weeks as needed.  So for this month, you’ll be getting a double-dose of Maggie if you are so inclined…and I really hope you will be!

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That Was the Week That Was (#346)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2013| 24 Comments »

The current trafficking panic is fundamentally a modern myth that has been re-created from the “white slavery fears” of the 19th century to further moralist or political agendas.  –  John Davies

Think of the Children!

“Law-enforcement agencies have…shut a suspected bawdy house located just metres from a daycare and one block from a southeast Calgary school…Paradise Spa…has been a problem venue for more than a decade, police said…”Michael Ford  SEX NEAR A DAYCARE AND A SCHOOL!!!!!!  The fiends!

License to Rape

“…[Alabama cop] Michael Ford was sentenced to…89 years…[for] incest…sexual abuse…sodomy and…sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old…he…offered no apology…the sentences will run consecutively…”

Lack of Evidence

…[New York City] Police arrested Felicia McGinnis, 26, after spotting her talking to passersby…while wearing a “black pea coat, skinny jeans and platform shoes”…“Any…fashion magazine would display plenty of women similarly dressed,” wrote Judge Felicia Mennin… “such outfit hardly demonstrates the wearer’s proclivity to…prostitution…characterization of…jeans as ‘revealing’ because they ‘outlined the defendant’s legs’ seems more to be expected in the dress code of a 1950s high school than a criminal-court pleading”…

Above the Law

A [Zimbabwean] prostitute…has claimed that civil servants…constitute…the majority of the industry’s clients, but [are] notorious for using…threats to [avoid] paying…most soldiers [use] verbal threats…while police officers [threaten arrest]…

The Schizoid State

Notice that a “child” magically becomes a “woman” the instant she’s accused of a crime:

Prosecutors in Texas have accused a 17-year-old woman of recruiting her…”easily manipulated” friends to provide [paid] sex for Michael “Money Mike” McIntosh…the friends were as young as 14.  The alleged teen madam is charged with compelling prostitution…

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan (TW3 #25) stupid food sex tips

Apparently, the “sex advice” in Men’s Health is almost as moronic as that in Cosmo!  Here’s another hilarious list of 15 useless, impracticable, ridiculous or just plain dumb suggestions from these clueless magazines.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #31)

They “believe it’s a means of making money” because it is.

…Elizabeth Ngonga has said…”Many girls and boys engage in sex-tourism, which they believe is a means of making money. It’s very sad spotting teenage girls and boys roaming beaches with foreigners”…Ngonga called on the government [of Kenya] to create laws that will enable police…to access tourist cottages [without warrants]…She [also] urged the government to ban foreigners from walking with bikinis and pants…

Show and Tell

…Doriana Silva is seeking $20 million from Ashley Madison…she was…promised a starting salary of $34,000 plus benefits…to create 1,000 “fake female profiles”…to lure men to the new Brazilian Ashley Madison site – and given only three weeks to complete the work…“The purpose of these profiles is to entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website…They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison – or any real human beings at all”…Silva developed severe pain in her wrists and forearms…and…the company has refused to grant her workers’ compensation or insurance…

Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #47) the future of porn in California

Could any non-bureaucrat actually consider this with a straight face?

Draft regulations currently being considered…would…not only require condoms during intercourse but also prohibit ejaculation onto the genitals, mouth or eyes, and instruct employers to provide [porn] performers with protective eyewear to avoid ocular contact with semen…The 21-page document suggests several other regulatory changes…like providing “plastic coverings or other disposable materials to facilitate cleaning of the work area”…

End Violence, Not Demand

From a memorandum submitted to the UK Parliament by migration expert Dr. John Davies:

…the assumed link between demand for sexual services and consequential harm…is not evidence based…sex work migration…is often undertaken to try and surmount…structural obstacles to…desired mobility…There is a widely disseminated proposition that…prostitution is a demand-driven industry…which…fuels forms of induction…[this] is apparently based on unreformed Keynesian economic theory…and …should not go unchallenged…sex work…is often a commercialised extension of a pre-existing, common domestic and barter behaviour…[as such] it…is more likely to be represented by Say’s economic laws, rather than any form of rigid Keynesian theory…

Well worth reading in its entirety.

Sex Workers Against Trafficking (TW3 #139)

From the Journal of Public Health:  “DMSC-led interventions to remove minors and unwilling women from sex work account for over 80% of successful ‘rescues’ reported in West Bengal…the proportion of minors in sex work in Sonagachi declined from 25 to 2%…”binmen snooping in rubbish

Checklist

I’m sure the Stasi gave very similar training in spotting threats to the state:  “Binmen and taxi drivers are among those to be trained in spotting victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland…‘Anybody in contact with the public…may…be helpful’…”

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #314)

…Two studies…in Australia and Thailand…have revealed consistent findings of authorities’ use of stereotypes…airport authorities identify a woman arriving on a tourist visa as a potential sex worker…through scrutinising women’s luggage…”sexy” clothing…leads to further questioning of women as potential victims of trafficking or unauthorized sex workers…

Naked Truth (TW3 #314)

Shereen El-Feki on the pragmatism of sex work and how HIV is forcing Arab “authorities” there to stop pretending they can make it vanish by forbidding it:

In the Arab region, it is easier to talk about sex when it is wrapped in a white coat of public health.  HIV…provides a way of prompting authorities to address the realities of sexual life, including sex work.  But a medical lens offers less than 20/20 vision, and the broader political, economic, and social conditions that make women turn to sex work in the first place…can be overlooked…But beyond public health, few women’s rights groups in the region want to talk about sex work, let alone actively engage with and empower…sex workers.  The Arab world is very far from accepting the sort of sex worker collectives, such as those in India and elsewhere in the Global South, which equip women to defend their rights…

Sadly, so is the United States.Samantha Azzopardi

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

At the beginning of last week, Irish “trafficking” fetishists were enjoying the wanking fantasy of a new “14-year-old trafficking victim”.  By the end of the week, reality threw cold water on it:  “The mystery girl [has been] identified…as an Australian adult [with] a previous conviction for deception in her native country…Samantha Azzopardi…was…believed [to be] aged 14 to 16…but…is actually 25…[and has] up to 40 different aliases…”

First They Came for the Hookers (TW3 #317)

After cops wasted taxpayer money to trick strippers, the women were forced to endure the childish giggling of morons in court, a refugee from a high-school newspaper’s writeup of the ordeal and a dried-up prude of a judge forcing them to endure a year of anti-sex brainwashing.  Because obviously there is no actual crime in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Comfort Zone (TW3 #320)

This excellent article about the “rescue industry” exposes its racist and moralistic motivations and demonstrates how it hurts those it “saves”:

For almost three years Sine Plambech…[of] the Danish Institute for International Studies, has followed 30 [deported] Nigerian women…the European categorisation of who is a victim and who is an illegal alien is arbitrary and unsystematic…“The ones who receive assistance have…[learned] what to say…If you say that you went to Europe to earn money for your family, you knew that you would sell sex and you bought the illegal papers yourself, then you probably won’t get help.  If you say that you didn’t know you were going to sell sex, you get help”…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #324) Buying Sex

The National Film Board of Canada improperly financed a Swedish model propaganda film named “Buying Sex”, and Alan Young (the main attorney in Bedford vs. Canada) is understandably upset:

…I was recruited to participate in this film on the basis that it would serve to inform and educate the public about…the ”Bedford” case…However…it became apparent that the filmmakers’ intent was to trivialize the constitutional challenge and…attack…my character and integrity…excerpts…were carefully edited to make…our commentary appear vacuous and self-serving…the filmmakers have manipulated and used both the NFB and myself to advance…the claims of abolitionists, and…to promote the adoption of the ”Swedish model”…into the Canadian legislative landscape.  The only reason the filmmaker chose to include the constitutional challenge…was to make the film appear topical and Canadian, and to secure close to $1,000,000 in NFB funding…

Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #324)

Change “Botswana” to the name of any American state:

Botswana recently [announced]…that prostitutes will either be detained if they are locals or deported if they are foreigners…Alongside regular crackdowns…the Health ministry will put out messages against sex work [on] billboards…Newspaper adverts, articles, posters, flyers, radio and television adverts on sexually transmitted infections and dangers of sex work will also be used.

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #327)

Buried in an article about Japan’s move toward legalizing casinos:  “…law enforcement has already started cracking down on sex clubs and affiliated businesses in entertainment areas in preparation for the Olympics…”

Buttons, Bags & BanknotesRewind & Reframe

A growing clamour to tackle sexually explicit pop videos will find a new voice this week with the launch of a campaign group to demand cinema-style ratings on lewd content aimed at teenage and pre-teenage girls…Rewind&Reframe [is] a joint project run by the pressure groups End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan and Object…A petition is also being started to call on the [UK] government to act…

Little Tin Gods

Just two percent of counties in the United States are responsible for more than half of the country’s executions since 1976…and…85 percent of the remaining…counties…have not had a single…execution in over 45 years…The top 10 counties…are: Los Angeles County, Calif.; Harris County, Texas; Philadelphia County, Pa.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; Riverside County, Calif.; Clark County, Nev.; Orange County, Calif.; Duval County, Fla.; Alameda County, Calif.; and San Diego County, Calif…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (TW3 #338)

With the judgment against Rick’s in New York, this was only a matter of time:

An exotic dancer is suing Bourbon Street strip club Rick’s Cabaret on claims the business refused to pay wages and siphoned off tips to hundreds of its women performers.  Kelly Moncheski, a former dancer, filed a lawsuit…on behalf of other former employees…The lawsuit claims that Rick’s…improperly classified dancers as independent contractors…and…forced [them] to share tips with the owners…the company dictated…how long they should work, what to wear, and how to groom themselves…

Across the Pond (TW3 #344)

I can’t really see why this is a bad thing:

The council are considering scrapping the need for Edinburgh’s saunas to apply for a licence…all the venues could keep operating and only be subjected to the usual public health and trading standards regulations which every business has to abide to…Sex workers’ charity Scot-Pep have criticised the move, saying it has been forced on the council by Police Scotland’s crack-down.  They are concerned about the implications for the safety of sex workers…

Celebrities (TW3 #345) Dennis Hof

The revolting Dennis Hof demonstrates more of the whorearchistic, misogynistic, trafficking-panic supporting and wholly opportunistic behavior that earned him a place in my Hall of Shame:

Upon hearing reports that Justin Bieber was seen leaving a Brazilian brothel…Dennis Hof is making a public appeal to him to stop risking his health and instead spend time with the ladies of his seven legal brothels in Nevada.  “I was shocked to hear that Justin might have put his health and safety at risk in a Brazilian brothel…condom use with Brazilian prostitutes is voluntary and unregulated…[and] Brazil has a rampant child sex trafficking problem, second only to that of Thailand…”

He goes on to basically say that sex workers are too stupid and criminal to be trusted to monitor our own health without state compulsion.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #345)

Caty Simon interviews Jaclyn Moskal-Dairman of SWOP Phoenix; Dairman explains how Monica Jones was specifically targeted and entrapped by Phoenix police, discusses the true reasons for “diversion” programs, and discusses the ethical nightmare of Project ROSE in particular.  How bad is it?  Take a look at this report from Al-Jazeera, which unlike US media corporations is under no political pressure to spread “trafficking” hysteria, and is in fact emerging as a persistent critic of the narrative.

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Hwang Jini

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2013| 21 Comments »

Mountains are the same as in the old times,
But streams are never the same;
They keep flowing day and night,
So they can not be the same.
The men of fame are like the streams;
Once gone, they never return.  –  Hwang Jini

My column on the kisaeng, theHwang Jin Yi movie poster Korean equivalent of geisha, opened with a sijo poem by Hwang Jini, the most famous and beloved of her profession.  In recent years, she has essentially become the archetypal kisaeng, and as in the case of Western courtesans her life has provided the inspiration for novels, a television show  and a movie; of course, these fictional treatments are considerably embellished and dramatized, and it’s difficult to tell history from folk legend from deliberate “improvement”.  In this case, the task is further complicated by the dearth of English-language sources on the subject, but there is still enough to enable a sketch of a most unconventional woman of almost superhuman charisma who made her own way in a society where that was simply not allowed.  Hwang Jini’s extraordinary presence and strength of will is a large part of why modern Korean women find her so fascinating; she is a splendid example of what I call an archeofeminist, a woman who uses her femininity to advantage rather than rejecting it.

She was born about 1506 in Kaesong, which lies in what is now North Korea.  Her mother, Chin Hyungeum, was of the cheonmin caste, but her exact profession is unknown; some sources say she was a kisaeng herself, though this seems unlikely given her poverty.  She was, however, extraordinarily beautiful, and attracted the attention of a young yangban (nobleman) named Hwang Chinsa, who took her as a mistress for a time.  They had one daughter, Jini, who from a very early age was recognized as exceptional both in beauty and in musical skill; it is said that she made the decision to become a kisaeng after a young man killed himself or pined away over her, and she realized such powerful appeal would win her fortune.  Now, it is very likely that the decision to send her to a kisaeng house was actually her mother’s; training started very early (sometimes as young as eight), so it hardly seems credible that she was already breaking hearts and making major life-decisions at such a tender age.  However, the very fact that the legend portrays her as choosing her own destiny demonstrates the strength of the impression she made on people.

In Jini’s day, Confucianism was still solidifying its hold on the upper class, and different schools of thought were still vying for control.  Though the kisaeng were technically of slave status, the government did not claim ownership of them until almost a century after her death; she therefore enjoyed a freedom later generations of kisaeng were denied.  After her training was complete she set out to earn a living, taking up almost immediately with a gibu named Yi Saeng.  Though some gibu were jealous or behaved pimpishly, this does not seem to have been the case with Yi Saeng, who appears to have been almost a father-figure to her.  The two took a long sightseeing trip to Mount Kumgang, with Jini (who by then was using her stage name, Myeongwol [“Bright Moon”]) obtaining their needs via casual prostitution.  This story illustrates several important points about her character: first, her ability even at so young an age (she was probably about 15 then) to deal with men as an equal, the hallmark of all great courtesans; second, her willingness to use her sexuality to obtain what she wanted; and third, her total lack of artificiality.  The latter was her most striking characteristic: she spoke her mind freely, with little of the formality which was the norm in Korean society; she generally went without makeup at a time when most kisaeng painted their faces elaborately; and she often dressed attractively but plainly, with very little jewelry.

Hwang Jini (portrait from Korean textbook, c. 1910)But her beauty, personality, intelligence, musical talent and skill at poetry allowed her to seduce men almost without conscious effort, and when she actually applied herself she was practically an irresistible force.  One of her conquests was a misogynistic government official named So Seyang, who bragged he would keep her for a month and then dismiss her without regret; at the end of the time he begged her to stay and she refused, composing a poem to tell him goodbye.  Another of her famous clients was a noted musician named Yi Sajong, with whom she is said to have lived for six years; given the extremely short professional lives of the kisaeng, this was presumably in her thirties, after she had made her fortune.  And a fortune it was; though it could not compare with the wealth of a yangban or even that of a successful European courtesan of her time, it was more than enough to support her in comfort until her death in 1560.  One of the reasons for this success was her ability to deal with men in a completely unsentimental manner, which allowed her to always pursue the most lucrative arrangement available without hesitation or regret; this has been romantically explained as the result of a tragic love affair in her youth resulting in an inability to fall in love again, but that is almost certainly a mere fiction invented by male biographers unable or unwilling to grasp just how pragmatic a whore can be.

There was only one man in her life who seemed to rise above the level of friend or valued client, and that was the philosopher Seo Kyung Duk, under whom she studied for a time.  He was the only man said to have been impervious to her charms, and though she may have at first viewed him as a challenge she eventually came to admire his strength and steadfastness:  she is known to have described him as one of the “three wonders of Kaesong”, the other two being the Pakyon Falls and herself (modesty was clearly not among her virtues).  Though she left her home at a young age, she returned for a number of visits over the years; it was a place of great natural beauty, and her appreciation for such is demonstrated not only in her poetry and her trip to Mount Kumgang (at a time when she could have been occupied far more productively), but also in the fact that she asked to be buried in a simple grave on a riverbank in Kaesong.  She wished to die in the same way she had lived:  practically, honestly, and without the ceremony and pretense which was the norm in her society.

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Innocence Never Had

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 8, 2013| 81 Comments »

This essay first appeared in Cliterati on September 29th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.

Detail from The Sistine Madonna by Raphael (1512)I’ve often written about the Cult of the Child, that strange remnant of the Victorian Era which teaches that children (and their definition of the term extends far beyond that Nature uses) exist in what cultists term “innocence”, a state which they seem to equate with “purity” and Divine grace, but which in actuality means ignorance and sexual repression.  It’s easy to tell when a writer adheres to this strange belief system: she tends to depict teenagers as blameless angels absolutely nothing like any young person who exists in the real world, seems unable to remember what she and her friends were like when they were that age, and expresses surprise and confusion when a young person resists being treated like a convict, an infant or a potted plant:

A 15-year-old prostitute has left a Tulsa [Oklahoma] shelter and is back on the streets, saying she prefers the illegal sex-trade business to her home life, [police] spokesman Mark Woodward said…”She was in protective custody and doesn’t want any help…There is no indication of a drug history.  That’s the life she preferred.  There is no telling how much money she was making….She doesn’t like her family, and she didn’t want us to contact her family,” he said…

The story treats this as though it were something remarkable, but it is nothing of the kind; the majority of underage prostitutes (or as they’re now labeled, “sex trafficking victims”) in the US have been in the “foster care” system at one time or another, and in the UK about 90% of teen sex workers who are forced into the system will escape at the earliest possible opportunity (though their agency is denied by the myth-makers, who claim they are “tracked down by their traffickers and disappear from care”).  So entrenched is belief in the incompetence of young people, and so tenacious the need to believe in their asexuality and “innocence”, that child cultists prefer to imagine young sex workers as doggedly pursued by ninja “pimps” who can undetectably spirit them away from houses and institutions without ever getting caught, rather than recognize the obvious fact that they simply prefer self-reliance to regimentation, surveillance and virtual (or actual) imprisonment.  As I wrote in “Too Young To Know”:

With rare exception, teen runaways leave home for a reason; they’re not lured away by “bad influences” or abducted by “traffickers”, but rather pushed away by factors such as physical or sexual abuse or parental rejection of their homosexuality or transsexuality.  But because our laws define people under 18 as chattel, they can be arrested by cops and forced back into the situation from which they fled, or else sentenced to “child welfare” systems so horrible many of them return to the street as soon as possible.  Child labor laws keep them from getting regular work (and such work would expose them to capture by police anyway), which leaves them with roughly three alternatives:  theft, begging or prostitution; the latter is nearly always the easiest and most lucrative…the child cultists want to believe teenagers could never think of prostitution on their own, but this is total nonsense; teen runaways don’t need to be forced or indoctrinated into a form of exchange which predates the human species, and in fact (as revealed by a recent DoJ-funded study) 90% of them are not.  Yet, nearly all current programs for dealing with teen prostitutes are based on exactly the opposite assumption, and if such a girl denies she has a “pimp” she is assumed to be lying.

The latter assumption is even more destructive than you may realize:  it is entirely possible that some of these girls would be content to remain in custody and even submit to the (usually religious) brainwashing procedures such programs generally include, were it not for the repeated pressure from “authorities” to identify a “pimp” who exists only in their twisted minds.

Teenage Bad GirlThe notion that young adults are more like children than they are like other adults, with its corollaries that they are ignorant, incompetent and infinitely malleable, is of very recent vintage; throughout most of human history people assumed adult responsibility as soon as they were able (usually about 14), and there was no such thing as “adolescent rebellion”.  As psychologist Robert Epstein explains, “infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed…they can’t do anything meaningful without parental permission…and…the more [they] are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show.”  Teens who are at least treated well are usually content to put up with the restrictions, the arbitrary rules and other such annoyances in exchange for the privilege of living at home and not having to work, but those who are abused and/or rejected see no reason to do so…and who can blame them?  Once they get a taste of self-ownership, even at the cost of a dirty, dangerous, precarious life in the street, is it any wonder they reject attempts to cage and collar them again?  The dogma that most of them are “controlled” by “pimps” is literally 180 degrees from the truth: they reject institutionalization precisely because they aren’t used to being controlled by anybody, and have no desire to be.

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Three in One

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , on November 6, 2013| 27 Comments »

Here are three propositions from the stance of a Devil’s Advocate.  1) A sex worker puts on an act to please her client; might he not then think that all women are acting when they’re being nice to him? How can he tell reality from acting, and does it matter?  2) If women could make as much money doing other kinds of work, there would undoubtedly be fewer harlots.  So, harlotry needs women to be impecunious, and men to have money. If there was real equality or equivalence, would harlotry become an historical oddity?  Is it therefore in the harlot’s best interests to maintain the patriarchy?  3) Sex workers see men at their best and worst; wouldn’t a retired courtesan therefore make the best partner for a man?

Nana by Edouard Manet (1877)1)  It’s certainly possible that a man could become paranoid in that way; in fact, it’s the plot of Jacques Brel’s song “Next”, which I featured in my very first hooker songs column.  However, I’ve never actually heard a man complain about that in real life or online; while clients do indeed seem concerned about telling the difference between a professional’s behavior  and genuine romantic interest, they seem less worried about amateurs’ behavior and more concerned about not being able to enjoy themselves fully because they know it isn’t “real”.

2)  You’re making several assumptions here which are simply not true.  The first, which is a very common one, is that men have more disposable income for some external reason (“patriarchy” or whatever), when in fact most of the reason is that men and women have different priorities.  Men will always make more than women on average, because a lot more men are willing to sell their souls, give up personal time and drive themselves into an early grave in order to succeed.  Furthermore, only a certain segment of whores do the work because they are in dire need; a lot larger fraction (especially in the West) simply prefer the work to the alternatives.  Take me, for example; don’t you think I could succeed in some high-paying conventional career?  Of course I could, but I don’t want to; being a whore is for me much easier and much more pleasant than the other options which bring in the same level of income.  I’m not remotely alone in feeling that way, and that won’t change no matter how much artificial “equality” the social engineers inflict on society.  That’s one of the main reasons the neofeminists hate us and want our profession violently suppressed: whores will never be good little collectivist worker bees in their totalitarian dystopia, so they want us to have no other option.  In short, the so-called “patriarchy” will maintain itself without the help of harlots and in spite of neofeminist attempts to reprogram human nature to fit their psychotic delusions.

3)  My husband certainly thinks so, and I’m sure he’s not the only one.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Guest Columnist: Sasha Castel

Posted in Guest Columns, Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 14, 2013| 26 Comments »

Soon after the publication of September’s guest column, blogger and regular reader Sasha Castel suggested that I do an essay on my beauty hints.  But as I told her, that wouldn’t be much of a column because I honestly don’t have any other than “be scrupulously clean, wear your hair in an attractive style and pick clothes that flatter your figure and express your own personal style.”  I know I’m very lucky in this respect, but I have excellent natural color so I don’t really require makeup unless I’m really dressing up; when I was working I never wore it unless the client was taking me out.  And my hair…well, let’s just say it does what it likes anyhow and I’ve learned to live with that over the past 30 years.  However, I suggested that SHE could write a beauty hints guest column…only she’s never been an escort, though she has been a mistress.  Is that a kind of sex worker?  Some say yes, some emphatically say no, and once again we see the absurdity of trying to draw arbitrary lines between natural female behaviors.  Here’s her essay on how to be a good mistress…which not only serves as a worthy sequel to “Keep Doing What You’re Doing“, but also provides excellent advice for a courtesan, an escort with a treasured regular, or even (to a large degree) a wife whose husband fully supports her as mine does.  So…what’s the real, substantive difference between these roles again?  Why are some legal and some illegal?  And how can any rational adult pretend that one is commendable, another is tolerable but the other constitutes “enslavement” or “crime”?

Top Hats by Erte (1975)I didn’t set out to become a mistress. I met the man in question (I’ll call him Carlos) in the course of my job.  He was well-known, one of the most recognized and praised opera singers in the world.  We spoke, liked each other, and went out to dinner.  Shortly thereafter, we went to bed, and I became “The Other Woman”.  I didn’t want to marry Carlos, just enjoy his company while he was in town.  He favored me with meals, drinks, occasional gifts, and most importantly, knowledge and wisdom.  I learned a great deal about the music business from him, which served me well in my career.  I also learned about being a mistress.  Unfortunately, I can’t give advice on how to find a man (on both occasions that I’ve been a mistress, it just happened), although it behooves you to appear nicely dressed and groomed if you’re in the market.  But if you do become someone’s mistress, here are seven guidelines that will make the affair a good one, for you and for him.

1. Be available.

If he calls you, go to him.  In this situation, your needs are subordinate to his.  What a terribly retrograde statement, but true.  He is providing the material goods while you are providing the companionship; you can’t do that from a distance.  Be with him as often as he wants you to be; if this doesn’t sit well with you, reconsider your position.  If it’s a position of equality you want, become someone’s girlfriend rather than a mistress.

2. Be discreet.

Resist the temptation to blab to friends about your hot and powerful new lover.  You don’t want to become the object of gossip, and you don’t want to cause problems with his marriage.  Use a pseudonym when referring to your dates, and also when storing his number in your mobile phone.  Avoid being photographed together.  If you wear perfume, apply it with discretion or forego it altogether to avoid olfactory traces left behind.  Be certain that all the jewelry and accessories you arrived with are with you as you leave.  If you attend events together, and someone introduces you as “Mrs. Carlos”, don’t contradict, just smile and say “how do you do”.

3. Be safe.

Birth control is mandatory, obviously.  The Pill or other hormonal methods are best.  If you need to take other drugs while on the Pill (especially antibiotics) be aware that they reduce the Pill’s effectiveness, sometimes to catastrophic effect.  Make certain you have a clean bill of sexual health before commencing sex; you don’t want to give him (or his wife) an STI.  If you are having other sexual relationships at the same time (not recommended), be sure to use a condom, correctly and regularly, to prevent disease transmission.  Understand that some STIs like herpes and HPV can still be transmitted through genital contact without penetration.

4. Be fun.

Get into his interests, or take up one of his hobbies, so you can have dates without necessarily involving sex.  He’ll be pleased at your enthusiasm, and it takes away some of the pressure on him to perform like a sexual Superman at every encounter. 

5. Be caring.

If he doesn’t want to go out, stay in.  If he’s sick, take care of him.  If he’s craving a food, cook it for him.  And above all, LISTEN.  I think that just as much as sex, what I provided for Carlos was a sympathetic ear to unburden himself.  I listened.  In fact, if I were to name the number-one most important quality in a mistress, it would be the ability to listen.  Listen to your man, try and understand his problems, offer solutions if they occur to you, but mostly just allow him to speak his mind in a way that he can’t do with his wife.  Your empathy and perspective will be as valuable to him as your sexual talents, perhaps more.

6. Be sexy.Coquette by Erte (1981)

Of course, this is the crux of the matter.  If he wants to play, do it.  He may have secret kinks he’s not comfortable sharing with his wife; indulge them.  Does he want to role-play?  Tie you up?  Have a threesome?  Be spanked?  If it can be done safely and doesn’t repulse you or harm you, make his fantasies come true.  Naturally, the usual rules of sex play apply:  sane, safe and consensual.  The only fantasy I’d hesitate to enact is any sort of public sex fetish, for purely practical reasons; exposure is not at all sexy.

7. Be realistic.

When it’s over, it’s over.  Don’t try to hang on past the affair’s natural life.  Enjoy what you had and move on.  For the love of all that’s holy, don’t threaten him with exposure if he doesn’t continue seeing you.  That’s psycho behavior, and it won’t make him like you:  it will have quite the opposite effect.  Keep the memories happy, and let him smile privately whenever he thinks of you.

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The Kisaeng

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2013| 17 Comments »

Oh that I might capture the essence of this deep midwinter night
And fold it softly into the waft of a spring-moon quilt,
Then fondly uncoil it the night my beloved returns.  –  Hwang Jini

Sex work is so stigmatized, slandered and hidden in modern Western society that it is difficult for most modern Westerners to comprehend just how normal it was in pre-industrial societies, and how woven into the fabric of those societies.  Nowadays we are wont to draw sharp lines between prostitutes, mistresses, girlfriends, actresses, dancers, masseuses and other groups of women, but for most of human history the distinctions between various types of non-wives from whom men could obtain sex were blurry at best.  Consider that courtesans such as the Madame de Pompadour and Jane Shore were still considered harlots despite the fact that all their liaisons were long-term and their total lifetime count of sex partners was lower than most modern women (who would be extremely offended to be called whores) rack up before graduating from university; also remember that working-class women from Roman times until well into the 20th century often supplemented their meager earnings by selling sex on the side, and you’ll begin to understand why the idea of the prostitute as a specific, “fallen” kind of woman only dates to the 19th century (and seems so ridiculous to those who know anything about it).  That’s why modern assertions that certain historical types of women (such as geisha) were “not prostitutes” are so absurd and wrongheaded; even if these women did not openly advertise and sell sex to a large number of clients, there is no doubt that compensated sex was on the menu for at least some clients, and that in Christian Europe they absolutely would have been classified as whores.

kisaeng in Pyongyang (c 1910)The kisaeng of feudal Korea are a case in point.  Though some authorities insist that they were definitely not prostitutes, or that only the lowest of the three classes of kisaeng were, or that only some did that job, the distinction simply isn’t a useful one.  Whether a given woman took money for sex or not was wholly immaterial to her status; that was always cheonmin, the lowest caste of Korean society except for the baekjeong (untouchables). The cheonmin included members of all “unclean” professions including butchers, entertainers, jailers, metalworkers, prostitutes, shamans, shoemakers and sorcerers; they were not all slaves, but slaves were drawn from this caste.  Kisaeng were technically slaves, and after 1650 they were all owned by the government; due to their high degree of training they were treated much better than ordinary slaves, but they were still owned by the state, and the price of freedom was so high it could only be paid by wealthy men (if such a man wanted one as a concubine).

There were three ways a girl could become a kisaeng: she could be born to a kisaeng mother (since caste was hereditary), sold to a kisaeng house by parents who could not afford to raise her, or drop out of the upper classes due to some unforgiveable breach of the complex and rigid Korean social rules.  Training started young (as early as eight) and their careers were extremely short: they usually began active duty about 15, peaked about 17, and retired by age 22.  During the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) this was codified into law; they were forced to retire from entertainment duties (including prostitution, singing and such) by 30, though they could continue working at non-entertainment tasks until 50.  Like the geisha of Japan, kisaeng were trained in poetry, music, dance, art, conversation and the like; in fact, one particular poetic form (the sijo) came to be associated with them, and some famous examples are basically advertisements intended to entice gentlemen to buy their sexual services.  But some kisaeng were also trained in needlework and medicine; since Korean doctors were not permitted to see noblewomen naked, their examination and hands-on treatment was the province of medical kisaeng under the direction of a doctor.  The haengsu, highest of the three tiers of kisaeng, were in charge of training after they retired; those of the two lower tiers who were not taken as concubines generally retired by working as seamstresses, food preparers, tavern keepers or the like.  Though some kisaeng became wealthy enough to support themselves, this did not happen nearly as frequently as among European courtesans.

Scenery on Dano Day by Hyewon (c 1800)Korean society was strict and regimented at every level, and the kisaeng were no exception; they were registered and forced to report twice a month to a bureaucrat called the hojang to ensure that they could not flee servitude without soon being missed.  Their day-to-day affairs, however, (including disputes with clients) were supervised by the haengsu.  Prior to the ascent of the Joseon Dynasty this was much looser, but the Joseons were Confucian and thus deeply enamored of hierarchy and regimentation.  For the first two centuries of Joseon rule there were frequent calls for the abolition of the kisaeng, but wiser heads always prevailed because it was understood that without sex workers, officials would be much more likely to satisfy their extramarital urges with other men’s wives.  The subjugation of all kisaeng to strict government control was thus a compromise with those who imagined society could do without whores, just as modern legalization schemes are.  After 1650 some kisaeng were assigned to a specific government office; these were called gwan-gi, and though officeholders were strictly forbidden from having sex with them, in practice they were usually expected and often forced to provide sex to these bureaucrats (because some things never change).  Many kisaeng who were not bound directly to government service had a gibu, or boyfriend; he got sex and companionship in exchange for protection, presents and economic support.  Most gibu were lesser officials, military officers or the like, and though they had no legal status they sometimes became very possessive and pimpish; there were even cases in which they got into fights with their girlfriends’ clients, though obviously this was considered extremely rude and might result in the kisaeng breaking off the relationship.  Over time gibu became more popular, and by the beginning of the 19th century it was rare to find a kisaeng without one.

Throughout the late 19th century, Korea was destabilized by interference from China, Japan, France, the UK and the US.  The Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) resulted in increased Japanese dominance over Korea, and one of the reforms the Japanese encouraged was the abolition of the entire class system, including slavery.  This technically freed the kisaeng, but (as so often happens when slaves are freed en masse by decree), many of them continued in servitude for the rest of their lives, but without the legal protections of their former status.  Some went to work as what Westerners typically think of as prostitutes, and today the term kisaeng is sometimes used to mean a whore who specifically caters to foreigners.  There are a few of the traditional houses still left, but since most of the songs, dances and such were passed down by oral tradition, they have been lost forever.  Idealized kisaeng appear frequently in South Korean historical fiction (much as the geisha do in Japan), but North Korea’s communist government is so hostile to prostitution that it labels all descendents of kisaeng (of whom there are a sizeable number, since Pyongyang was once home to the greatest kisaeng school) as having “tainted blood”.

Unfortunately, courtesan denial is not rare nowadays; those who insist that sex workers of historical times were somehow fundamentally different from their modern descendants reveal not only a pathological aversion to human sexuality and a deep misunderstanding of human nature, but also an appalling ignorance of the truth about selling sex in any era.  Courtesans throughout history would laugh at anyone who claimed that education automatically removed a woman from whoredom; the many who were talented singers, poets and writers would likewise ridicule the notion that artistic training somehow disqualified her from harlotry.  They, the kisaeng, and modern hookers all know what so many pathetic moderns deny:  a person is not what she does to make money, no matter how much repressive governments want to pretend she is.kisaeng school, c. 1910

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Guest Columnist: Aspasia Bonasera

Posted in Guest Columns, Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2013| 15 Comments »

I’m sure regular readers already know Aspasia, who is not only a regular reader and frequenter commenter, but a blogger whom I’ve linked on several occasions.  In a recent correspondence she told me about Oshún; since I’m very interested in the subject of whore goddesses, I was immediately intrigued and asked if she would do this essay, and she graciously consented without any arm-twisting.

Like so many other young women these days, I began to research the old myths of ancient goddesses from all around the world during my early to mid twenties.  I was always drawn to sex goddesses like Oshún, Aphrodite, Inanna, etc.  We’re all kindred spirits, if you please.  Their personality traits, especially those of Oshún and Aphrodite, are very similar: graciousness and generosity (and you’d do well not to anger them), unabashed femininity, sexuality, and sensuality.  They display absolute authority over the power of sexuality, which was understood to be the complex thing it is and certainly not a frivolity as our anti-sexuality culture deems it to be.  In the pantheon of ori (divine beings) in which Oshún is a member, she is the third most powerful after the Father God Obatalá and Mother Goddess Yemayá.  Like them Oshún has a sacred color, yellow, all her own; all other orisha (spirits or gods) must share colors.  Oshún isn’t known to many people outside of the Caribbean, Brazil or the Yoruba people found primarily in Nigeria and Benin (though they can also be found in Ghana and among the Krio of Sierra Leone); however, she is known and revered everywhere in the Latin Caribbean and South America where the Yoruban people were taken during the slave trade.  In Cuba, where Oshún has been syncretized with Santa Cecilia (patroness of music) and La Virgin de La Caridad del Cobre, she is known as Our Lady of the Caridad del Cobre with a feast day of September 8th.  Cobre means copper in Spanish, and the precious metal figures prominently in the representation of Oshun.

OshunBesides copper, Oshún also favors gold and all things shiny and yellow; this is similar to Aphrodite, who also favors gold and is often (though not always) depicted with golden hair.  Tied around Oshún’s hips is a gourd filled with her honey, which she smears on the mouths of men whom she is trying (and always succeeding) to win over; she also smears it upon her own naked body, a frank reference to lovemaking.  Similarly, there are stories concerning Aphrodite sharing her goldenness with lucky men she has chosen to be hers…for a time.  Both goddesses are sea-born in some fashion with names that reflect those origins: Aphrodite (Greek for “foam-born”) rose from the sea and Oshún was named after the deep “O” sound the Earth made causing a boulder to fall into the water, which made the “shun” sound…or so one patakí (parable) of her naming tells us.  She is the goddess of the “sweet” waters and indeed has a river named after her.  Oshún is most revered as a goddess of sexuality, sensuality, beauty, love, money, joy, music… la dolce vita.  She is the “Divine Epitome” of all that is wonderful about women and femininity, and is renowned for her beauty; in Cuba she is known as La Bella Mulata (“The Beautiful Mulatto Woman”).  A patakí explaining the change in Oshún’s physical appearance in Cuba tells us that she changed her appearance to better blend in with the diverse racial mixture found there; her skin color changes from dark brown to golden honey-brown, the latter being another symbol in the representation of Oshún.

But I always noticed something missing from the typical feminist writings on sex goddesses: their whore aspect.  All of the sex goddesses, with their consummate love-making skills, also have a connection to money or money-like objects or symbols and yet somehow, following the feminist mindset, never the twain shall meet.  Not even within the same goddess!  The PC revisions of these goddesses are a disservice to them and to any who want to know about them, even if they don’t feel the same strong pull to their service that I do.  Oshún Panchagara is the whore aspect of Oshún.  As with Aphrodite, modern-day revisionists avert their eyes from her frankly sexual and overtly whorish aspects and give it a gloss and polish that is absolutely misplaced.  I only found out about Panchagara through a book I recently acquired in which a Cuban santero (a male practitioner of Santería; female santera) priest and “son of Oshún” (all followers of Oshún are considered her children) not only mentions this aspect but celebrates it.  Baba Raul Canizares writes in Oshún:  Santería and the Orisha of Love, Rivers and Sensuality:

In one of her avatars, Oshún Panchagara, she is depicted as a Holy Whore, “La Santa Puta”.  This is a controversial aspect of the orisha, rejected as a New World fabrication by modern-day Yoruba revisionists and African-American feminists who feel their goddess is being degraded by depictions of her as a prostitute.  These people are actually projecting their own prejudices and morality into the equation.  In reality, prostitution has not always been viewed as degrading or immoral.  In fact, temple prostitutes, including the famous “vestal virgins” [sic] of ancient Rome, have featured prominently in the history of ancient religions.  On and off, prostitution has been legal in Cuba until the late 1960’s.  It is only natural that, just as every other profession has a patron saint, prostitutes also enjoy this privilege.  In her aspect as Panchagara, Oshún is at her most rambunctious, coquettish, and wild.  Panchagara is La Bella Mulata on Steroids, a woman very much in control who chooses who she’ll bless with her sexual favors.  Panchagara is in no way a victim, as those who object to her claim, but an empowered female who has chosen prostitution on her own terms and for her gain.  Oshún Panchagara has been an inspiration to women who for whatever reason have had to engage in prostitution; she demonstrates that a human being’s sense of self-worth need not be affected by what he or she does for a living.

There is little about Panchagara online, at least nothing as honest as Canizares’ statement.  The PC aversion to her frank sexuality, which Canizares also hits upon, can be found here in this article where a modern-day African-American female follower of Oshún seems to have a bad reaction to the “wrong” expression of sexuality as shown by other daughters of Oshún.

Panchagara completes the totality of Oshún.  Unabashedly sexual and sensual, a love for money (she was impoverished at one time, resulting in an aversion to being poor), confident in her beauty and allure…that is Panchagara and most every other sex worker I know!  As una bella mulata myself, I have a strong kinship with Panchagara.  While I am not a santera, I worship Oshún in my own way.  She is an endlessly fascinating goddess and saint.  Baba Raul Canizares and Migene Gonzalez Wippler are both Cuban and have a wealth of knowledge of Oshún in the Santería/La Religion Lucumi tradition, which is the one that has influenced my worship of Oshun the most.  Panchagara is an aspect of Oshún that must not be left out.
Oshun by Selina Fenech

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Keep Doing What You’re Doing

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , on July 17, 2013| 14 Comments »

For the first time in my life, a man has is proffering me the opportunity you usually only read about:  not just becoming his mistress, but doing so with all the trappings.  Delightful traveling, charming bed-and-breakfast accommodations, wonderful lingerie and clothes, my own residence…This man isn’t Donald Trump, but it’s quite a step up from my usual.  He keeps telling me that spoiling me is what he enjoys.  I find it hard to take such generosity with the easy grace he’s clearly expecting.  Obviously, I don’t want to mess this up.  Any tips?

La Loge by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1874)Whatever you’re doing, he’s obviously happy with it, so my advice is that you keep doing it.  Now, that may seem as though I’m being a smart-ass, but I assure you I’m not; there are two ways women mess up gigs like this, and both of them involve trying to change the situation.  The first strategy for failure is to decide being a mistress isn’t good enough any more, and pushing him to leave his wife; the second is the same way wives mess it up, by assuming the man is “caught” and getting lazy.  Both errors result from exactly the same cause: a failure to understand the basis of the arrangement.  A married man who keeps a mistress is not interested in replacing the former with the latter; he has economic, social and emotional reasons for staying married, and the mistress is his means of making up whatever he feels is lacking in that relationship.  So if the mistress starts trying to undermine her gentleman’s marriage, or fails to provide whatever interested him in the first place, there is no reason for him to continue the arrangement and heartache, drama and scandal may follow.

What it boils down to is this: being “kept” is a job.  It may be a very nice, pleasant dream job with fantastic fringe benefits, but it is still a means of earning one’s keep, and it needs to be thought of that way.  You are following in the footsteps of the great courtesans of old, and you should take the best of them as role models.  Keep making your patron happy in the ways you know best, let him know you appreciate what he does for you in return, always make time for him when he calls, and above all else be discreet.  And as long as you keep in mind that even the most loving relationships have an economic basis, I think you’ll do just fine.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Guest Columnist: Onioja (Part Two)

Posted in Biography, Guest Columns, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2013| 18 Comments »

This is the second part of the story of a Nigerian sex worker in Amsterdam; if you missed the first part yesterday, I urge you to go back and read it first before continuing.  I did as little editing as possible because I wanted to allow Onioja her own authentic voice, and the postscript is absolutely verbatim at her request.

paspoortAn immigrant’s life is hard in any case, but if you come from a country like mine with a dubious reputation in this part of the world, the problems are almost insurmountable. Even in this relatively tolerant country with many official so-called integration programs and requirements for immigrants, every new arrival is marginalized and stigmatized.  You feel it right away at border control; the officer is polite and friendly, but despite your visa, your passport is turned inside out and you must show every piece of legal identification paper you have and explain your plans.  If you’ve never experienced them, the problems of migration are hard to grasp.  It requires enormous courage to leave family and friends behind, but you do it because of dreams and illusions of opportunity that override rational doubts.  Unfortunately, my culture is dominated by irrational beliefs and superstitions such as voodoo and belief in evil spirits that can only harm and hurt people.  So though I work hard to keep it under control, I also run on fear and worry about evil that may hurt me.  I wish I could get rid of it, but it is in my blood like my faith in God; to counterbalance it I nurture love, kindness, and honesty, and I am hungry for logic.

Only some of my colleagues know that I’m a practicing Christian, and some of those who do ask how I can practice a faith that condemns my work as a mortal sin.  I say that I don’t practice a faith, I practice life; they don’t understand because they don’t understand what faith is.  Faith is irrational.  So I choose to go to church to get together with other faithful people to pray and sing in a service that honors God, but I rarely care for what pastors have to say; instead, I use the service for reflection.  Being baptized and raised as a Catholic doesn’t mean I signed an agreement with that church to be docile and obedient; I’m not about to be held hostage.  Faith doesn’t keep me from using my brains so that I remain stupid and blind to all possibilities, and my brain sees no conflict between sex work and the Lord’s message to love all other people.  In fact, sex work lets me use my God-given talents for other people’s benefit better than any job I’ve had.

It also lets me turn liabilities into advantages.  For example, in accordance with the tradition in my country I was fully circumcised at such an early age that I have no memories of it; this may be one reason that I’ve never been much drawn toward having sex for my own pleasure.  But I don’t miss what I have never had, so to speak, and being circumcised seems to help my work because I don’t get easily distracted when I service clients.  After so many years and different clients, I can count on one hand those who have said or shown in some way that they notice the circumcision. Many eyes have been up close, and many fingers have touched me there, but though I look and feel quite different from a woman with intact genitals I’ve had very few reactions.  So I often wonder how much real affinity most men have for their partners’ bodies.  It’s telling that those who noticed also asked about my other erogenous zones and how to sensitize them; many men don’t seem to know we have other erogenous zones than genitals and nipples.

Because of my superstitions I don’t advertise on the internet or through social media; it would expose me to evil spirits beyond my control.  So I had to invent and develop casual methods to meet the right men in places where they usually hang out for leisure, and become accepted there as a black, single, migrant woman.  I decided it was better for my work to be myself, an authentic black woman, rather than an inauthentic white woman with a black skin.  So I dress in Nigerian gear, wearing Nigerian accessories, bring my music, dance tribal women’s dances with booty shaking and lap work, and talk my language when we make love.fufu  My favorite trick to loosen and warm up clients is bringing homemade food such as fufu, which is made to be eaten from a bowl with your fingers, sitting on the floor and no napkins.  Getting messy with their fingers and lips breaks the white pattern of what is civilized, and sets the mood for being more “natural”.  In their daily life, my Dutch clients are completely removed from nature, which means that having sex comes to them in a more roundabout way than to men back home; they love it of course, but compared to the average man in my country, sexual embarrassment and Puritanism is in this people’s genes.  By my standards they’re a bit uptight and formal even when they are at leisure and buttoned down; wouldn’t it be boring if I would only mimic the habits of their culture and not mix in my own?

Sometimes I think that my work gives me the chance to act as a kind of ambassador for integration; I think that if all migrant sex workers did such things, it would make our work even more valuable.  Of course, true integration requires those from both cultures to leave their comfort zones and mingle somewhere half way:  while white cultural DNA has acquired a sort of anti-black gene, blacks don’t naturally go for the whites either, so while I’m exposing them to our ways I’m also learning to get a handle on theirs.  I listen to what they tell and ask, and how they react to what I say and do.  My work has thus opened the door to a real understanding of a society so different from my own.  I’m also working on integrating and overcoming prejudice, stigmatization, and marginalization in my life outside of work; for example, my kids are in school and I am acquainted with some other mothers. Now and then my kids play after school with kids from Dutch-born parents, but there are also mothers and even teachers who simply neglect me when I say hello.  So it’s a long, slow process, and my work has helped me more to move forward than anything else.

Doing sex work for just over six years has made it possible for me against all odds to accomplish what I wanted.  I bridged the abyss between my culture and social class – the lowest of the lowest – and this culture.  I am now pretty well integrated.  I am on the level where the rule has become the kind of personal contacts that leads to an invitation like this – telling my story.  I am appreciated and respected, and so is my work; I often get thank-yous and compliments for my performance.  I don’t come cheap but I know that my fee is totally appropriate for the quality of my services and my personality.  And here is the best part:  by doing sex work – in total freedom, the way I want it – I am slowly achieving what I’ve always wanted.  And that is, having children in the best possible situation, as part of a society to which we belong, with real opportunities to achieve our goals.  If my kids should fail, it’s not for lack of freedom and opportunities.  This is what sex work has brought me; no other way of life could have made it possible.  Praise the Lord.  Amen.

Postscript:  Thank you, Maggie McNeill, for this opportunity.  Your invitation first scared me, but saying yes and doing the work has been a breakthrough in getting my superstition dismantled.  AND I discovered that I have a long story to tell.  This is just the beginning.  God bless you.  I am not a writer (although I might become one), but this dear client gave me generously all the help I needed for now.  I owe you a good one, baby!

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