buying a ticket to the slut factory

Arousal is a fragile creature. I would describe the United States as a place characterized by flagging arousal and performance anxiety. I know it’s very human to have fear and shame integrated into every aspect of our bodies, from asymmetry, size, whether big or small, and other aesthetic to profound differences, but I don’t think we talk as much about how commonly this self-consciousness leaks into the bedroom. How does insecurity play out in our intimate spaces? How does it play out when you’re paying for intimacy? It’s just an issue we tend to project onto women, femmes, and the aging men with erectile dysfunction. But I’ve found that most of my customers, both in and out of the strip club deal with some level of dick quirks. And on my end, my hole is incredibly quirky. Not visually, but in how finicky my vulva can be. Sometimes I completely turn off, other times pleasure occurs when I least expect it, with people I never would have imagined could match so well with my body. I don’t want to out most of my customers by talking about them with any specificity, but I have to say, as a professional dick handler, I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to the thunder down under.

I don’t think any of my clients are entirely comfortable with their penises, except for perhaps Mr. Robinson, but even his dick confidence is completely superficial and much less related to his own experience of pleasure. I feel, if anything, he gets a pass to not worry about this one thing that so many men agonize over. At least for him, a whole slew of women have affirmed that he does in fact, have an above average sized penis. Some men build entire identities over that somewhat irrelevant difference of a few centimeters, regardless of how the people they intend to fuck feel about size. Which, I have to say, is all over the board. Not everybody wants a honkin’ big dick. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I like a good medium-sized peen peen, or a smaller shlong with spirit. There is seldom a check-in with penis receivers to see what we prefer. The dominant narrative around dicks seems to be primarily authored by straight men policing what is or isn’t an acceptable penis. And it doesn’t make any sense to me, a career penis receptacle.

Another thing that has come up a few times lately is the question of what condom goes on what dick. Regardless of actual penis size, I’ve found that my Black clients all have decided they are cock monsters in need of Magnums. Not all Black men have giant dicks. Most have pretty average sized boners. In contrast, I’ve handled larger dicks from non Black people who don’t use extra large condoms. Their dicks somehow manage to fit into regular degular condoms. Who coulda thunk it? I don’t understand what the whole condom size thing is about, when most condoms are incredibly stretchy. I credit it to the hypermasculinization and hypersexualization of Black men. Magnum condoms are as much a societal pat on the back of assurance as actually having a dick that is large enough you can brag about it.

I service a few men who aren’t able to come, or who can, but inconsistently. The reasons vary. For one person, I truly can’t make heads or tails of why. He’s told me that, whenever we begin, he could bust his nut early on, but once he pushes past that point, it’s a much further goal. I remember way back, he mentioned that he’d had trouble with his last girlfriend, because he made her cum, but she could never make him cum. And now, as the latest purveyor of his pleasure, I realize that it probably wasn’t entirely for lack of effort that she was unsuccessful. It doesn’t matter how long we have sex, the man simply does not ejaculate. Which creates a conundrum for me. I know most escorts put limits on how long they’ll get fucked, but at my rate, I tend to give people a bit more wiggle room. But usually, the end of a session is heralded by someone busting a nut, either in a condom or on my tits. When coming isn’t in the picture, it can be hard to know when to stop. It can also be hard to tell whether or not I’m actually reaching my goal of providing a satisfying, pleasurable experience.

As a demisexual with a wet-ass hole (not asshole), I know that coming isn’t always or even often the goal. There are many purposes to sex, and I personally know that partnered sex adds a level of complexity that can be distracting. I can always get myself off when I’m alone. It can take literally a minute if I’m in a rush. But sex with another person is about more than orgasms. It’s the connection, affirmation of identity and vitality, closeness, intimacy, or any number of other things. Plus our bodies release all kinds of lovely chemicals whether or not we jizz at the end. Just enjoying skin-to-skin contact is enough to enjoy a rush of oxytocin and other endorphins. So, if I’m less sex-negative about the situation with that client, I understand why he continues having sex with me, even when he can’t reach “completion”. It’s everything else, and the ego affirmation he gets fucking someone like me.

Another client is a bit too anxious to come consistently. He’s the kind of person who thrives in a tease-and-denial scenario. He’s hard as a rock (Okay, not like an actual rock. I’ve always thought it’s silly to compare dick hardness to rocks, because fucking a rock would be entirely unpleasant for me. And for clarity, I have put a stone dildo in my punanny.) whenever my panties are on. He thrives on the barrier between us, and on the infinite possibility for pleasure just barely out of reach. But as soon as that possibility becomes an attainable reality, his boner flags. The situation changes from being hypothetical and weightless to something measurable, graded by performance, and he is incredibly concerned about his performance. He’s the kind of person to apologize before he’s done anything, and then again, shortly after he edges his way toward being a pleasure giver. His orgasms are something he prefers to control. And I get it. I also tend to prefer to get myself off in the end, even with partnered sex. I know my body best, and there is a lot of pressure when it comes to teaching another person how to touch me. I get frustrated, and in the end, prefer to do the job by myself, regardless of how much the men around me would love to get the chance to learn my secret formula.

Being “good at sex” feels a bit mythical to me. Someone can be technically talented, but unless the recipient of those talents opens their body to the pleasure, technique can go to waste. I have to consciously choose to experience pleasure most of the time. It’s very easy to shut everything down, to numb myself to touch and penetration, to turn erogenous zones into irritation areas. Sometimes my nipples are the happiest place on earth, sometimes to be touched is like nails on a chalkboard.

When I was stripping, I had to acclimate to a high level of touch. At first, there was a bit of shock over the entire experience. I had a lot of internalized whorephobia, which is different from slut shame. I was an unrepentant slut. I could explicitly talk about how many people I’d banged and how many more bodies I wanted to add to my count. You couldn’t tell me anything about the random strangers I’d meet up with for one-night-stands after a few conversations on Tinder. The shame came when I became a stripper who was just as promiscuous, but getting paid for it. The strip club is full of whorephobia perpetuated by dancers and management alike. It’s incredibly ironic to me, because we are by nature, working in an occupation for sluts. We are the people who other people consider to be dirty, rotten, whores. And yet, we pick apart each other, and whisper rumors about who does what. Dancers blame other dancers who also dabble in full service sex work for everything from inconsistent money to the sexual assaults they suffer at the hands of customers who never understood consent to begin with.

I remember people whispering about a parttime pornstar stripper who would fuck people for $200. I remember being a little surprised she might be working at such a low rate, but if I look at it in a less shitty way, it was not a bad hustle. She’d make her customers take her up to VIP, which was $100 for 10 minutes. She would make $260 in ten minutes, and she could fuck eight to ten guys in a night, which in the end, is pretty decent money, all things considered. Of course, again, this was all rumor and it wasn’t our business. But strippers are hardcore reinforcers of the whorearchy. And I felt the burn of stigma for years. Even to this day I’m afraid of what my coworkers think when they read my writing about what I do, and the ways my boundaries have changed. Or even, the ways that I presented having certain boundaries, but in private was my big ole freaky self.

There was also the dynamic of not presenting as too slutty to customers, because customers, even while buying a ticket into the slut factory, didn’t feel comfortable engaging with an out and proud whore. It was like, if you visibly enjoyed the sexual aspects of your job, you must be gross and riddled with disease. They would joke about how some dancers were hardened whores, and nudge me as if I was some exception. And I’d have to put on the ruse of “I’ve never let anybody do that to me before,” as if I wasn’t doing literally the same things with every other man if he paid me well enough.

Part of that stigma comes from the benign place of straight men wanting to feel special. They always wanted to believe that they held a unique space in my mind and body, that there was a piece of me that craved them, or that a piece of me was opened by their unique touch and presence. I always say, men are fragile, because they are. They are the original “pick me’s”. They are treated by the world of other men as completely insignificant and replaceable, even threatening. It is in intimate situations that they are allowed to feel special and seen, where they find deeper purpose and profound connection. I think part of their dickish tendencies in these situations comes from a fear of the power that they lack in the realm of intimacy, and the power they so desperately crave that only we can grant.

Since becoming a pandemic whore, I’ve gone through a process of coming out. I’m out to all of you. I’m out to most of my friends. For so long, I hinted at what I did because of fear. I didn’t want to be judged or whispered about, but of course, what is there to do when people are whispering about you? I was somewhat afraid of losing my job, as much as there was a tacit understanding that many of the Easter European dancers were hired to provide full service sex work. That was clear to all of us, and they knew to tip extra heartily, to bribe the bouncers and management to keep their mouths shut about the operation. Still, there is a currency to presenting as a “good girl,” as much as I hate that delineation. There’s nothing bad about sex, there’s nothing wrong with working for money. There is nothing that makes a person bad for having sex for money, and yet that was the term so commonly used to describe dancers perceived as prudish. Conforming to hegemony has its perks. I was given preferential treatment; I was regarded as respectable; and I wasn’t hassled into paying more money to cover up my illegal activities.

It’s not safe being a whore, even an upscale one. And I don’t mean “upscale” in a way that equates what I do to being better, it’s more that I’m able to operate from a place of greater privilege than street based sex workers, and other sex workers operating under less safe circumstances. They face more direct interactions with police. I’m able to operate digitally, and under the veil of a legally recognized sex work venue. But at the end of the day, I could lose everything just as quickly. You don’t have to even get convicted to lose all of your assets. Our legal system is so fucked up, you can be rendered helpless simply based upon suspicion. And it’s terrifying.

Anyway, this post has gone everywhere. From dicks to law enforcement. Oh the places you’ll go, when you’re a fucking hoe.