broken promises made by horny, smitten men

I am turning 30 in less than two weeks. My birthday is Oct 25. For the first time in many years, I am throwing myself a party. For femmes, the big three-oh is a complicated occasion to celebrate. It marks the great departure from that bright, potential-filled period of being in your twenties. I’m sure it will hit me at some point, but I have been lucky enough not to see this turning point as a negative. I attribute it to queering up my view of aging. I think middle aged lesbians are the hottest, and elder queers are aspirational beacons of a lifetime of resistance. I want to live long enough to get wrinkly. There’s something tiring about youth. You can get overly focused on clinging to it, even though it’s water in your hands. There’s nothing inherently wrong with skin care routines, selecting a longevity-focused diet, or exercising to retain your abilities; however, one day we all get old. Skin sags, our bodies thicken or thin in ways beyond our control, and if we are lucky, we will live long enough to become disabled. Of course, I’m saying this as a 30-year-old to be. The material realities of aging are not yet, well… material to me. One day I will have to confront what all of these hypotheticals mean, if I’m lucky.

I just finished my first quarter of grad school, and I have many opinions about psychotherapy and the ethical guidelines enforced by the various psychology governing bodies. I don’t know if any of you care about this stuff, so please, comment “idgaf, Selena. More tits, less sass about the institutional issues in psychotherapy,” if you want less grad school thoughts.

While there are many different theoretical orientations for therapy that range in their beliefs about the sources of psychological distress and mental illness, peer reviewed research shows that there is minimal difference in the efficacy of one modality over another. Actually, the most important element is the therapeutic alliance, which is essentially how well you bond with your therapist and trust them to help you. Strong therapeutic alliances are collaborative. Your therapist should listen to what you want to get out of treatment and you should decide together upon goals and indicators of success. There have been many popular therapeutic methods through the years: Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic, CBT, DBT, Humanistic/Existential, Postmodern. The popularity of each modality tends specific to where you are located in the world and the politics of your country. In the USA for example, we love Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and other cognitive therapies. America loves the idea of simple, “scientific” solutions to complex problems, and CBT gave us simple answers. Maladaptive thoughts lead to maladaptive behaviors and feelings. By correcting negative thought patterns, you can shift your behaviors and how you engage with your environment, and this will lead to more positive feelings. On the flip side, modalities like Existential therapy are much more popular across Europe, with its focus on the dark realities of being human. We all will face death and the inherent aloneness of being. Ultimately, we all die alone. Nobody can live our lives for us, no matter how hard life may be, we are the only ones who can create our own destinies. Life is not fair or just, nor does it have meaning beyond what we choose to assign to it. We will all endure suffering, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. These harsh realities bump up against American idealism. In fact, American therapists were so depressed by the idea of morbid thinking, they spun our own unique flavor of Existential/Humanistic therapies and gave them a positivist spin. Instead of dealing with dark realities, American Existential therapists tend to focus on things like self-actualization through personal transformation, positive motivation, essentially girlbossing your way through adversity. It’s more “you only live once” out here than, “you will eventually face death alone.”

I don’t know what modality I will choose, but I am excited by the prospect. I feel revitalized going to school. In contrast, I feel utterly deflated driving to work at the club. There are many reasons for my malaise: harassment by management, the club taking over 60% of each dance I sell, and the reality that we are in a quiet recession that economists refuse to call. We have been in this recession essentially since the pandemic began, and yet it isn’t a recession until the rich are affected. Recently, I have been grappling with the realization that I am performing survival sex work, at least to some degree. Yes, I have other options, but I would be hard pressed to find a job that pays what stripping pays, that allows me the time and flexibility to attend to my studies. I am not performing a high risk kind of survival sex work, but dancing does not feel the way it once did. I look at baby strippers and hear their hopefulness. I see that greenness that I once had in their eyes. Naïveté can leave you vulnerable, but it can shine brightly, a beacon of hope. I’ve learned many things through my years in this industry, and I am an excellent stripper. I have dedicated customers who pay a lot of money to spend time with me. I am one of the most respected people at my club, in spite of my management conflicts. I have created customer alliances that transcend sex work, that are profound and life changing. I know how to do the drag of high feminine performance, and I have refined my style in a way that would have been foreign to me when I began seven years ago.

It’s weird to reflect, particularly as my feelings change and my relationship to the industry shifts from one of abundant positivism to ambivalence. I mean ambivalence in the sense that I both value and love sex work, and I have suffered as a result of my work in the sex industry. It has created boundless opportunities for me, and I have found a community that I have profound love for; and yet I have faced systemic oppression due to my participation in it. I’ve also been hurt in interpersonal ways by customers and coworkers alike. Most recently, this came in the form of my now-former sugar daddy breaking his promise to fund my tuition. I’m lucky enough to be able to pay it myself, but it’s not easy to lose a vital lifeline. A sex worker’s career is littered with broken promises made by horny, smitten men. I suppose it should come as no surprise. And to be honest, it isn’t surprising, but it is hurtful and it creates complications. I have to work harder. I no longer have the option to just be a student. But what is there to do about it?

I would never drift into the sex work abolition camp, but I am skeptical of portrayals that glamorize what can be a dark reality. I worry sometimes that I’ve contributed to that perspective with my earlier positivism. I get DMs from Black femmes asking me for tips to get into stripping: which clubs are worth auditioning, how to be successful, how to take that first step. These are complicated questions to answer, because I cannot in good faith tell Black femmes that there is a clear path to success in this industry. The only inevitable reality Black dancers face is blatant discrimination. Some of us are lucky and able to create success, but our success comes at a price. We have to develop resilience. Like water off of a duck’s back, antiblack comments slide off of our backs. It is easier not to internalize the overt comments, but what is most insidiously painful is the visibility of our different treatment: the lack of equal stage tips; the ease with which our white counterparts make sales without having to do more only to be haggled down; the way it feels to watch dancers who look like family turned away at the door; the explicit precariousness of our jobs compared to our white counterparts, just to name a few. The industry is changing and light skin Black femmes are having our moment, but it’s not enough. Dark skin Black femmes still face the harshest realities of discrimination, and I’ve seen little progress in this arena.

***

CLUmsY TrAnSiTioN

I walked up to a South Asian man who appeared to be in his early thirties. I don’t usually talk to South Asian guys, especially recent immigrants or tourists, because it almost never goes well. I consistently get some sort of “I’m not attracted to Black people” comment, followed by solicitation for discount sex. It’s different with second-gen clients though. They’ve been indoctrinated by Beyonce and Saweetie, and may have a taste for the “right sort” of Black person, ie not dark skin or unapologetically Black working class.

The man was well dressed and alone. I willed myself over to make an introduction and squatted beside him.

“Hi! How’s it going?”

“I remember you!” he said, recognition lighting up his face, “I’m Neil, don’t you remember me?”

I did not. No part of me recognized this man. I smiled at him blankly, sorting through how I’d gracefully navigate this little pickle.

“Ummm…”

“You run that organization for strippers, and you’re a writer, right?”

Damn, he and I really had talked. I was surprised he retained the information. I surely had not. I squinted, hoping his face would suddenly blink into clarity.

“Wow, you really did remember me!”

“You don’t remember me?”

He looked a bit hurt, but hadn’t made any moves to remove me from his lap.

“We did a dance together…?”

There’s nothing that sparks a stripper’s memory like defining yourself by getting a lap dance! Oh boy, truly narrowed it down! I was drawing a blank. I leaned back, then in to give him a sniff, then checked his profile. Nada.

He whispered in my ear, “And we made out…?”

He pulled back to guage my expression. I still could not remember him. Maybe it speaks to the forgetful slut in me, or the ease with which one man blends into the next, but I had no recollection of him. I brushed the discomfort aside. If he’d bought a dance with me before, recalled details of my life, and returned to the club expecting to see me, it was likely he would buy another dance. I saw my opportunity and went in.

“Ohhhh,” I said, pretending to remember him.

“You remember?” he asked, not quite believing me.

“Yeah! I remember you...”

I wasn’t selling it, but I was kinda selling it.

“Well, I know you just got here, but do you want to go for a dance?”

“Yeah, let me just use the restroom.”

After a quick potty break, during which he acquired a red Dixie cup, I brought him to my tried and true VIP booth and began undressing.

“Don’t take off your panties. I have a girlfriend.”

Ahhhh. At that moment it clicked. I remembered him—or maybe I remembered the variety of men like him who say the same thing. They can’t come home to their wives or girlfriends with pussy skid marks on their crotch. I was more than happy to keep my panties on. I straddled Neil and began my dance. I recalled a “panties on” request, but I didn’t remember any of the other crucial details of that dance. I didn’t remember if he had tipped me well. I didn’t remember if he had tried to push my boundaries. I didn’t remember if I’d impulsively made out with him in a moment of vulnerability, out of horniness, or if we had negotiated that particular extra. Had we done more than make out? None of these details revealed themselves to me. Neil was just a vague gesture of a man—one of many. Which is not to say that he wasn’t polite or good company in the moment, not that I could recall either way. He was handsome in a generic way: strong bone structure, curvy lips, inoffensive business professional style.

“I could see why I made out with you, you’re easy on the eyes,” I remarked, more to myself than to him.

It’s rare I make out with a customer, and I tend to be selective. Kissing is more intimate than boner grabbing, and I prefer to enjoy it somewhat if I put it on the menu.

I don’t often think about the wives or girlfriends of my customers. Most clients are in some sort of partnership. Their club visits are discreet occasions that they may or may not share stories of when they return home.

“Do you do anything else?” Neil asked, pressing his erection against my panties.

I gave him my list of extras and he listened intently, quietly calculating the cost in his head. I’ve been surprised by how few customers are protesting the price hikes. I was hesitant to tell Neil what I charge for what he wanted, but without any prompting, he offered more than I would have asked for.

The dance ended, and I walked Neil back to his table.

“Let me sit down for a bit, then I want to take you for the half-hour.”

“Sounds good!”

In the interim, I sat on the lap of a portly German man named Gerhart.

“When are we getting engaged?” Gerhart asked.

“As soon as you get me a proper ring,” I replied, winking at him.