On Thinking Yourself a Tourist: Sex Work & Class

There’s this line in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, where the protagonist (dirty old scholar that he is) imagines the escort he frequents making fun of him. He believes himself wise, saying “He has a shrewd idea of how prostitutes speak among themselves about the men who frequent them, the older men in particular. They tell stories, they laugh, but they shudder, too, as one shudders at a cockroach in a washbasin in the middle of the night. Soon, daintily, maliciously, he will be shuddered over. It is a fate he cannot escape.”

The protagonist, being a a former lady’s man and a member of the upper-middle class (professor) imagines himself not only outside of the shudder, but also with the ability to peer into the secret life of his Discreet Escort (who is gendered, classed, and raced differently from him). He imagines himself a tourist in the world of sex work, able to flit in and out of the class he enters when he goes to the brothel and imagines his education gives him insight into the world of the prostitutes that other men can’t access.

There are certain professions that assign themselves third-wall hubris (also known as the Third Person Effect). They observe and move through spaces - antropologists, media critics, writers, etc. - supposedly objectively, relatively untouched by the circumstances they’ve chosen to surround themselves with. They wield  ‘choice’ as a protective barrier that makes them objective observers over active participants. No matter how close their bodies bump up against what they’re observing; the war, that censored song, their ho, they are first and foremost outside of this experience. They have chosen to be here, and can leave at any time.

This happens, too, when members of the upper-class foray into the working class. Of course, it’s always an upper class coming down from the mountain to visit the working class. The working class simply can’t afford to be tourists in the upper-class, marking yourself a visitor of any sort comes with implicit capital privileges. It’s a notion I’ve been working through as I try to process my own internalized sex worker stigma, which is bound up in the class I think I occupy with my white skin, ivy league college degree, and middle-class family.

I had this client the other night. He’s been here once before. He’s youngish, late twenties, early thirties, and he comes late at night. He wants me to list all the men I saw that night and what I did with them. It doesn’t matter if he’s into what I did to them, his focus is on the sheer volume - not the specifics. His fetish is the fact that he’s paying me. He wants me to list the clients I saw, tell him how many, how old they were, how much money they gave me. He asked me how old I was. “Twenty-two,” he repeated. “I get to buy twenty-two.” I was on the verge of telling him that, actually, no, you get to buy a specific service with a twenty-two year old for an allotted amount of time, but he sensed my loathing and semi-corrected himself by tacking on a ‘half an hour.’

He disclosed to me that he was a writer. He’d been working on a semi-autobiographical novel about his ‘wacky adventures’ in college. He went to Journalism grad school at Harvard (I think 40% of my clients are Harvard boys, eck). I had this flash of him as a doughy faced college kid; him on his friend’s yacht, taking weekend flights to South America to sex tour Brazil. Did his wacky adventures include going to see a twenty-two year old sensual masseuse?

Something clicked inside my brain and I realized just how much I hated this man I was slowly jerking off. That asshole, using his fucking privilege to write for Newsweek and the AP and to come get a massage from me, while he aspired to write for the neo-liberal hole that is the Economist. In my mind, I made a pact with him. If he was going to write about this I was going to write about it, too. And if he published it, I would get it published and use his real fucking name. 

I finished up and told him he should keep his cum. He was confused. “You know, you should keep it. Like a souvenir or a memento. You paid a lot of money for that sperm. It’s worth something now. 160 dollars, actually.” 

I asked him what the authorial tone of his autobiography was. Was it some sort of Tucker Max shit? No, he said, it’s more….”illuminating.”

I realize now what really pissed me off about him was that he got to be a writer, paid and played, while I schlepped dick so I can write in my free time. We both were pretending to be tourists here. Me, a young professional who moonlights as a sex worker and him, a wacky college guy who visits massage parlors so he can write about the ‘gritty’ experiences of real life. Really, though, neither of us are tourists or ‘just visiting’ this situation. He’s still a regular who pays to get off and this is still the best paying job I’ve ever had.

Scam-onomics

I went to see a psychic the other day. I was on Madison Avenue, feeling a little underwhelmed by recent life events, glumly strolling the sidewalk in this city of overwhelming skyscrapers and Fancy Dogs when a large and disheveled man intercepted me. He handed me a flier for tarot cards and psychic readings and asked me if I wanted to see the Madam. I’m a such a sucker for people hocking their wares on the street. Being a sex worker means I’ve got money to spare (and not just money, but CASH motherfuckers) and I like to spread the wealth – so I’m constantly saying yes. Yes to your self-produced hip hop album, yes to your subway mariachi band, yes to your ailing grandmother you may or may not have and the pills she can’t afford. Yes. Absolutely. Take it, please.  I’ve never made this much money in my life and I know I work hard for that shit, but something about it makes it feel unreal. Something about the way it was procured, how easy it was compared to working a 40 hours a week at a dead end job, makes me want to roll around in bed with it and then paper my street with it by dropping it out my window.

I viewed this hollering tarot card flouter as some sort of divine intervention. Feeling like my path in life is murky encourages a spiritual flakiness in me; where I take solace in the idea that God, or the Universe, or Obama has a Grand Plan. Of course I was going to get my tarot cards read. If I’m anything (and I’m a lot of things) I’m definitely a confused twenty-something obsessed with the idea of the future

 Anyways, I took the bait and climbed up the steps to a pretty swank Madison Avenue apartment. It was replete with chandeliers and fainting couches. I appreciated her style; the imitation of 19^th century English bourgeoisie that was going on. I was quickly stuffed into a little room, a converted closet full of dark wood paneling and the heady scent of incense.  Tarot card readings were 20 bucks. In light of the fact that I recently dropped 200 hundred dollars on hot pants, 20 bucks felt like couch change.  A thirty something woman wearing pastels and making no attempt to costume herself in gypsy attire bustled in the room. She closed the door, and there we were: the two of us, a tiny table, and a crystal ball.

She asked me to shuffle the cards and think of two positive wishes; saying one out loud and keeping the other to myself.  The first wish was basically a condensed version of ‘what should I do with my life?’ which I phrased as “What path should I take to help me become a writer?” and the second wish was about my baby girl and life partner, whose love I don’t doubt but whose actions are occasionally rash and hurtful.  The cards were big and I shuffled them clumsily before splitting the deck in two and picking the one closest.

She spread the cards out and instantly the question turned to love and relationships; a market she can capitalize on. The first half of her of reading was spot on, but spot on about events in the past, not the present. She asked me what the second question was and I told her it was about my lover. Of course. She became animated now. Talking about negative patterns and blockage. When I asked her about my first question, about whether or not I should move to Europe and what path I should be on, she dismissed it, saying she saw ‘ a lot of adventure around it.’ Now, she didn’t really finish the reading. There was no wrap up, there was just a lead in. She needed to meditate on the situation, she needed to do some research and focus. Without naming a price, she asked me if I was willing to let her focus energy on this situation. She wasn’t talking fast, but she was posing questions quick. Did I want this situation resolved? Was I ready to know? I’m going to tell you if you belong with this person, are you ready for that? Are you sure?

Yes, yes absolutely. I was ready. I wanted to know. I felt like I couldn’t say anything else. She named her price, 75$ for each meditation. Ummm. I was hesitant but not ready to say no. I’d planned to go shopping that day so I had a hundred in my wallet. Maybe. I only have this. Ok, for you, I don’t usually do this, but I want to help you with this situation so I’ll take it. I placed the money in her hand and it disappeared quickly. No take backs.  Even as I fumbled with my wallet I knew I was being scammed, but for some reason I was okay with it in the moment. She hadn’t been wrong, she just hadn’t been quite right and maybe the psychic reading would reveal something reassuring. I left the room in a daze, a little confused about what exactly I had been talked in to, beating myself up a little bit, but not too much.

See, I knew I’d been scammed. When I went back for the reading, she told me that there were negative blockages that needed to be cleared and spiritual energy that needed to be reconfused. In order to do this, I’d have to purchase two crystals – one for me, one for her – at 250 dollars each. I told her I would think about it and left, utterly unsurprised and not terribly disappointed. I appreciate the art of the scam and I felt a deep economic kinship with her as I handed her the wad of 20s in my wallet, her talking the money out of me in less than twenty minutes. If I could be this good of a hustler, I’d make crazy money as a ho. If only money and finnenangling it out of other people didn’t make me feel guilty, if only I demanded tips in the way you’re supposed to at a massage parlor. Touch my tits? Sure, 100 bucks. Set my prices high and have a secret bargaining chip, played the game, waggle my ass in their faces until they begged to give me extra for a simple caress. Instead, I draw strict lines. This much touching is allowed, no I only do fetish and domination extras, no you cannot push my boundaries with your money, you disgusting dick. Still, I sell a scam. I pretend to be a straight (or bi-curious) fun loving gal. I pretend I’m a long luscious brunettee when it’s actually a wig. I pretend I’m a giggling girl who just loves jacking guys off and appreciates the art of a big hard cock getting bigger and harder. I pretend to get turned on – and then I go home and count my money.