Birthday Reflections, and a Tiny Tease

There’s nothing like a birthday to make one take a deep retrospective dive of self-assessment. I don’t know why, but this birthday has been particularly present in my mind for months prior to this moment. It’s the approaching close to the beautiful time of endless possibilities known as my twenties. I have two more glorious years before I hit thirty, and begin to deal with a whole new slew of oppressive societal pressures around my aging feminized form.

But simultaneously, in my head I’m already thirty. I’ve crossed that bridge from early life to adulthood. I also remember how terrible and fraught my childhood was. I don’t long for some fantastical time when I was innocent and free. That was never my experience. Youth was isolation and helplessness. Adulthood has been freedom, even with bills and relationship obligations. And as fucked up as GKM’s adage “if it can be fixed with money, it isn’t a problem,” to some degree I can relate to this. When I was a kid, there were a lot of other barriers to my safety and security. As a minor, I couldn’t make decisions for myself. I had the option of becoming an emancipated minor, and I almost did. When I was in my mid teens, I had a very helpful therapist who counseled me on various options to escape my home life. I could become an emancipated minor; ask other family members I trusted to take me in; or I could come and live with her and her family. It’s something I reflect on, even to this day. It was not a normal patient/therapist relationship, but it was what I needed. In the end, I stayed to protect my sister. I didn’t want them to have to take the brunt of our mother’s wrath. I knew I was strong enough to handle it without enduring too much damage, so that’s what I did. And surprisingly I’ve had a string of very healthy long term relationships with kind people. Even within my family, I’ve managed to have some of the healthiest relationships. My mom mourned the fact that she had never given us an example of a healthy relationship to model our own relationships after, but in a way this was a gift. Instead of giving me a healthy relationship model, she gave me a series of unhealthy ones that taught me what I didn’t want. I learned how not to be toxic by seeing her toxic behavior. It was clear to me how she was facilitating her own demise, and I saw that all I had to do was be more or less her opposite. Instead of paranoid clinging, invading her partners’ privacy, and obsessing over inadequacies--I would give my partners space to have their own private internal worlds to grow and be themselves. I would work on my self-esteem and independent adventures. I would accept them for who they are, wherever they might be in their personal journeys. In turn, I would expect my own freedom and privacy. And I expect a high degree of freedom, I mean I am an open, poly sex worker.

I am not a perfect partner by any stretch. I can be private to a fault. My friends like to cut me slack and say it’s the scorpio in me, but my secretive nature is the result of trauma. It’s not necessarily healthy. It developed as an adaptation to an unhealthy environment. And while I don’t fully buy the radical disclosure Americans pride as the cornerstone of a healthy relationship, I do think I could benefit from working toward comfort with transparency.

As I’ve dipped into my latest depression, I’ve been haunted by the re emergence of old traumas. I have worked hard to overcome my childhood anger. I was a very angry kid. I lashed out and hurt people. I’d pinch and scratch other kids. All I wanted to do was hurt people. My sister makes fun of my very metal child self, chanting “I hate my mommy and I hate my daddy” constantly, dreaming of ways I could kill them. And I still feel that sometimes--this blood lust. A desire to inflict pain and watch someone else suffer. Which, sidebar, has led a number of clients to suggest I pursue domming full-time. A friend of mine confided in me that she has trouble domming her clients because she doesn’t really want to hurt people. And my response was, “You don’t want to hurt people???” Underneath my very calm exterior, is a violent interior world. If I hadn’t gone to years of therapy, that punishing intensity would be much closer to the surface. A talent children of borderlines often inherit is an uncanny knack for emotional suppression. Because I would be punished for showing emotions, I became incredibly adept at veiling my feelings. I don’t emote very much unless I’m intentionally doing so, and even then it’s not particularly natural. There have been so many times when I’ve felt submerged in a tempest of emotions and my friends have told me I appeared to be completely calm. In recent years, I’ve gradually become the zen person I appeared to be. I rarely get angry. Mostly I’ve been happy, and appreciative of the life I’ve made. But a bit of my anger has begun to bubble up again in unexpected ways.

Evan is a very dedicated and nurturing parent. He has three kids, one that isn’t really sentient enough yet to have much of a personality, and two that actually seem to be maturing into good white people. They are growing up with an ongoing discussion around race and privilege; they are encouraged to explore their gender and sexual identities; and they are engaging with an awareness of civic duty in undoing systemic inequality. In an objective way, this is kinda the best that one can expect from white people, especially from very privileged white people. I want more white people like this in the world, rather than the other side of this coin which is to say very insulated white people convinced of America’s greatness and their own part in an endlessly upward trajectory of progress. But it can be hard to see a happy, functional family. It can be hard to hear Evan dote about his daughter. It’s not something I’d gameplanned before, because I never expected to date a parent. I was naive thinking it was avoidable, especially as I grow older and the odds that, within the pool of people I’m interested in, someone at some point popped out or jizzed out a child because of, well, *instinct*? I’m of the “having children in this time is immoral, the world is on fire and we’re out here striking matches and pouring kerosine,” mindset. I don’t plan to give birth. If I become a parent, it will be from adopting an older kid who needs a family, or dating a person with kids whose offspring I vibe with.

Evan is fantastic at getting me to bend my rules. I was not thrilled he had a whole team of children, but I liked him enough to accept the situation. But returning to the point, his healthy relationship with his children has triggered this irrational combination of anger and repulsion for me. And sometimes, there’s nothing he can do with them, no matter how pure and lovely, that won’t trigger that response. Which made me realize that I have some deeply unresolved “mommy and daddy issues” not nearly buried as far down as I’d thought. After doing a bit of emotional digging, I realized I was feeling formerly-dormant pain from my own childhood emotional abuse, neglect, and structural racism. Seeing the bounty of love and opportunity his kids have access to starkly contrasts the steady denial and lack of access I had as a child. Instead of affirmations, I was told how cold and manipulative I was. Instead of after school activities, I had to hide in my mother’s office while she worked late into the evening to provide our very meager living conditions. Instead of cultivating friendships, I had to make peace with loneliness and alienation because home wasn’t a place I could bring friends, and my abusive home was cultivating antisocial tendencies. And all of this was augmented by the normalized racism of living in Middle America as a nonwhite person. There was the abuse at home followed by abusive ostracization at the hands of my white peers. Childhood was hell. But Evan’s kids—while they will endure their personal burdens and while they are struggling through the alienation of this pandemic—will never experience the things I had to experience. And I genuinely don’t wish my experiences on anyone. My sadistic id may sometimes want that, but simultaneously, my rational superego knows how absolutely bonkers that impulse is. What kind of sane person wants children to experience pain? This internal conflict has led me into a moment of what spiritual people might call “soul searching” (I don’t believe in souls). And I’m back on the hunt for a therapist (I have a good lead thanks Ari, my tireless podcast editor and homie). I could do all of the internal analysis in the world and still need a therapist to sort through these very troubling emotions. My goal has always been to not be toxic like my mother, and I’m seeing a bit of that toxicity leaking out, which has thrown me into this existential panic. How do I stop this before it consumes me? How do I cultivate a healthy relationship to my trauma? How can I separate my trauma from the experience of witnessing good parenting? Can I judge white people on a case by case basis rather than as a problematic group I am theoretically opposed to?

It’s difficult to remain productive as I confront my personal issues. As much as I try here, I know that being consistent is more important than always making The Best Content I’ve Ever Created. It’s about putting in the hours and allowing myself to fall short of my expectations. Some people find themselves stuck in a rut of inaction over the fear of falling short. My mental health has been all over the place. Some days, I have enough going on to feel fulfilled and evade drifting into my reflective downward spiral. Other days, all I have are my thoughts and youtube philosophy videos which do little to maintain my sanity. The pandemic has gradually broken me down to my essential bits. I’ve had to ask, “Who am I when stripped of everything?” The dad joke in me wants to rebut with “You’ve been stripping for so long, you should know by now.”

***

I had my final session with Rahi on Thursday. This one he was providing for free, to tie up any loose ends. A number of you responded to my last Rahi episode, saying that you hoped I might experience some resolution after the fourth session. He and I had a late evening chat on Wednesday to finally discuss what I had written about my experiences. Rahi is such a kind and gentle person. He enjoyed the comprehensive inside/outside perspectives of the writing and took the ups and downs productively.

Rahi: I don’t want you to feel like you have to eat your vegetables before you can get the dessert. I was thinking for your last session, we should focus on pleasure, with a bit less emphasis on vocalizing consent since it seems that that was getting in the way of your enjoyment before. But I do want to intermittently check in with you to see how your body is feeling.

He synthesized what I expressed in those essays pretty perfectly. At the time, when I agreed to the whole therapeutic shebang, it was largely that I didn’t know what I wanted exactly. I knew I had sexual trauma to parse, but I didn’t know the best way to go about doing that via a tantric practice. Of course the true origin of my interest had been wanting a happy ending massage.

Rahi: The way you phrase things is so colorful and expressive. I mean, how did you say it? That you wanted me to stimulate your clitoris “like a video game controller,” I mean the way that you phrased that made me laugh again this morning as I reread your work. You have such a talent for expressing what’s going on in your body. I want to give you what your body wants, but I do have to admit that the way I was trained to touch within my practice is not—

Me: I know, your practice is in therapeutics. And I don’t want to push you to do anything that you aren’t comfortable doing.

It’s easy to “blurt” things out in writing, but to hear them quoted back to me when I’m out in the wild is a whole different story. It’s very cringe, as much as I wish I was bawdy enough to live down the verbalization of my sexual desires.

Rahi: Thank you. Tomorrow during our session, I want to focus on pleasure. I wanted to start with full body active consent and then dive into pelvic work. Are you comfortable with anal stimulation?

Me: Yes.

Rahi: I was going to propose we do some anal stimulation. I always say, the anus is one of the most overlooked pleasure centers.

Me: That sounds great.

We chatted more about the logistics. I was excited for the anal play, but skeptical. Many try for anal and fail. Shoutout to the one person who actually strummed my asshole like a harp (whatever that’s supposed to mean lol).

After three sessions with Rahi, I knew what to expect in general, but this round we had the additional layer of the writings I’d shared. He knew my inner monologue. He knew my real motivations for pursuing his services. There was no veil of high-minded niceties to hide behind. It made me think of my clients. How do my interactions with a body worker differ from those I have with my customers? In the end, we’re kinda looking for the same things. We want comfort and pleasure, an erotic connection. We want a bit of realness or at least the guise of mutuality to suspend our disbelief as we exchange money for these connections. For me, I like paying. I feel a sense of power knowing my money can buy sex or erotic touch. Men are nickeled and dimed for intimacy in a way that is completely normalized. It’s not an exotic experience, it’s just a Thursday. But I am a very privileged fae who could skate through most of my life paid for, if that were what I wanted. Thankfully, my mom made me too paranoid to coast on the support of the men in my life (at least within a romantic relationship context).

But returning to the point, paying for sex work is an exciting privilege that I don’t take for granted. On the other hand, Rahi considers himself to be a body worker, not a sex worker per se. And the difference became more and more apparent, over the course of our sessions. While there was attention to pleasure and eroticism, it wasn’t particularly sensual in the way that the labor I perform is. Maybe this was the result of working with a more conservative group of mostly civilian clients. Not everyone is as socialized to being intimately handled by strangers as me. For many women, a stranger touching their breasts is already so out of the norm that they have to perform mental gymnastics to calm themselves. Many people have a heightened fear response to intimate touch, and Rahi has, over the decade of his practice, mastered the art of conveying harmlessness. As much as he is present in the room, there is also an invisibility to his method. Unlike that charlatan, Rick Mass, he isn’t heaving over me with a clearly detectable erection. Rahi gives off asexual energy as he provides his services, which I could see being very comforting to many people, especially those dealing with sexual trauma at the hands of cishet men. His technique certainly made it easier for me to trust him off the bat, but over the course of our sessions, I realized that I was looking for something closer to what I provide to clients.

There’s this ongoing cultural joke about male sex workers who cater to women. “Gigolos” who seem to cater to cougars. But what about AFABs who want to buy nuanced sexual services from men? Where can a fae buy some idealised BFE, with some guy who always focuses on making me come? Okay, admittedly I can’t really afford my own services, ha. But the lack of even having the option is frustrating.

I’ve also started looking into AFAB providers. Part of the difficulty is that we all know each other. It’s not a huge community, and especially in LA, we’re all one degree of separation apart. And maybe it’s not the worst thing to buy sex work from a friend. Maybe that’s an unnecessary mental barrier I’m perpetuating. I have a lot of hot friends, and a few I would proposition if it didn’t feel like I might be crossing some invisible line of professional decorum. But we’re all intimacy professionals, and in a way, purchasing sex work from a friend fits very neatly into the structure of mores I’ve constructed. But personal ideals aside, I’m hesitant to pursue this line of thought.

***

I came into my final session with Rahi a little bit tired. My cervix was bruised after my last night with GKM. It made me think of this Michelle Williams comedy sketch. Now, I don’t like Michelle as much as I wanted to because she makes a lot of slutshaming, whorephobic comedy that seems to be rooted in her own sexual insecurities, and I don’t think she’s particularly funny. But ya know, I like to root for women. But anyway, she makes this joke about how vulvas and penises should be sized like shoes. You don’t want a size 12 dick in a size 5 pussy: that’s a recipe for disaster. I have a pretty small vulva, even when I’m totally relaxed and DTF. It’s easy for me to end up bruised, and even more so when I’m not aroused. My last session with GKM, I wasn’t very aroused, which meant by the end my cervix was battered and over the subsequent days, I had minor cramps. What can I say? It’s an occupational hazard.

My cervix had healed a bit, but I was still not fully recovered. When my cervix is bruised, it’s harder to get aroused. I knew my body wasn’t in fully functioning form, and I adjusted my expectations to the given circumstances. I didn’t want to be overly obsessed with the orgasm. If it happened, it happened, but if it wasn’t in the cards, I wanted to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. My goal was to enjoy being touched. My heart was primarily in it for the body massage. Because of the pandemic, I haven’t been actively pursuing massages as regularly as I did. Once upon a time, I’d visit the Korean spa once a month where I’d buy an hour with my favorite masseuse, Hana. Longshoreman bought me a massage and chiropractor session as a gift recently, and while it was very appreciated, I don’t trust American style massages. I like to be moved around and stretched, and American massages are a bit too gentle, and that massage was no exception.

Rahi’s massages are unique because he doesn’t have to dodge erogenous zones. Sometimes I’m holding tension in my inner glute, and because that’s a taboo zone, it ends up neglected. I was looking forward to being massaged in a way where no part of me would feel passed over, not even my anus.

***

You’re going to have to wait until Friday for my full Rahi update. I’m already six pages into this entry and the story has hardly begun.

For my final birthday reflection, I wanted to thank all of you. It’s truly incredible that I have an audience who has stuck with me for so long. Thank you for being here, and for inviting your friends. Thank you for supporting my work. I didn’t know how viable this could be for me, since I’m a sex worker making mostly written content. Most of y’all aren’t here just to see a tiddy or my puss. A lot of my clients at the club used to respond with disbelief that I was running an online platform where I wasn’t selling nudes or porn. They were surprised people would pay to read what I write. And I guess I was surprised too. Thank you all for making this possible. I am so grateful to each and every one of y’all.