And Still I Persist

It has taken a momentous amount of effort to open my laptop to even begin this entry. I’m utterly exhausted. I’ve gone to a few of the demonstrations. I don’t have the energy to attend protests every day, and after having marched for weeks years ago during the Baltimore Uprising observing no notable changes in the end, no substantial policing or criminal justice reform in the aftermath, I am a pessimistic as to whether or not marching is the way we affect systemic reform in 2020. As it is, we allocate more than half of most city budgets to policing and then divide the meager remainder among our public services like education, infrastructure, healthcare, combatting homelessness, after school programs for kids, or any of the numerous other arguably much more important resources we need as a community to have any quality of life. We don’t look at countries that we consider to be the ideal like Denmark or Sweden and think, “You know, I can tell they’re healthy and happy because they have a massive highly-armed police force and expansive military power.” We admire their intelligence and quality of health, but somehow have a disconnect about the need for universal healthcare and education. I don’t know how we as a country have come to see more guns as the fix to every problem, but this is where we are, and explaining that is exhausting. Explaining discrimination is even more exhausting because the black community is a minority in America, which means more than half of all the citizens will never directly understand what it means to be treated the way we are. A lot of people simply can’t fathom that their experience doesn’t characterize life for everybody else. And even if they know that being black means having a vastly different experience from whiteness, they still don’t feel any incentive to change things, because things are pretty good for them. Beyond that, America has a cripplingly short memory. We somehow manage to forget all of the mistakes made a decade ago, let alone 50 or 60 years ago. People don’t feel like they should be held accountable, even while enjoying the privileges afforded to them at the expense of other people's suffering.

In the midst of all of this going on, I still needed to make money. I’m working for a fraction of what I once could have expected to make, which is still not terrible but it’s not what I’m accustomed to. My outcalls are much more sporadic as of late. Most of my regulars are still employed and on salary or protected by union contracts. Unfortunately, some of my best clients live in other states and formerly traveled for business which enabled them to visit me. My industry, like many others, has been wrecked by the pandemic. While a few businesses are hanging on using creative techniques to stay open that often involve their dancers assuming health risks in the process, most are closed to abide by state mandated guidelines. I don’t think my club should be open. We are a high contact, nude club populated by partial and full service sex workers. In spite of people breaking quarantine en masse to protest in the streets against systemic injustice, we are still in the middle of a very dangerous pandemic, and we will not know for a few weeks the degree to which we have spread Covid-19 through assembling in this way. On a less macro note, I also win my clients with my beautiful face and dancing with a mask would get in the way of business *insert hair flip*.

On Tuesday I broke curfew to see Matt, the Longshoreman, for one of our weekly outcalls. I’m not working for my usual rates, which has been a blow to my ego. I tend to squeeze Matt for a bit more since he wants extras most of the time, but I do miss the time not so long ago when I could demand my worth and turn down outcalls whenever a client wasn’t willing to abide by my standards. All that said, I still appreciate Matt, he’s gotten me through these past few months. Matt is a nurturer. He cares for me like an Italian mother, pulling out tupperware after tupperware of leftovers he heats over the stove. If you know me, you know I mostly don’t eat Italian food. It’s one of my irrational biases. I’ve never been partial to heavy noodles, acidic tomato sauces layered with cheese. It’s not inherently bad food, it’s just not my first choice. And Italian food tends to be the first and only choice of basic people. When I propose eating Vietnamese fresh rolls, oftentimes people don’t know what I’m talking about and instead counter offer pizza or lasagna. I’ve been subjected to too many class trips that ended up at some mediocre Italian spot where I couldn’t find a salad worth a dime and had to choose between one creamy cheese-filled entre or another creamy cheese-filled entre. Now, I am aware that good Italian food is not like this. I’ve eaten at highly rated artisanal Italian boutique restaurants. I just don’t want it. And this hurts my Italian friends and clients. It’s as if I just slapped their mothers whenever I express my lack of interest in Italian cuisine. They try to fight me on it. They quiz me to see where I’ve eaten and what exactly I chose.

Matt asked me how I could like Mediterranean food but not Italian since the components are largely identical. I explained that it’s not a rational bias. He sat across from me on his little sofa, clearly hurt that I wasn’t fond of the cuisine from his mother country.

Matt: Bubbaaaa! How can you not like Italian? I know you like tomato sauces from that Chinese channel we were watching last time! I mean what did you order?

He drew out one of his many pet names for me. I’ve long defended my disdain for Italian food, but recently I’ve come to a point where I’m starting to crave... Italian. There, I’ve said it! I eat so much Asian food from Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, and on and on, that I’ve begun craving something different. And Matt always has fresh Italian leftovers that his aunt prepares for him. But I wasn’t about to admit this to him.

Me: I usually order whatever that day’s special is, or I ask for a suggestion.

Matt: Okay well, I have this dish that my aunt made. I mean, it’s not like the bad kind of Italian food! It’s got a nice tomato base with herbs and some beef-- you like beef! And she made it with linguini, but I made some fresh noodles I’ll heat up for you that I cooked with, like, squash and brussel sprouts and butter. I promise it will be good if you try it, Bubby!

Me: I’ll eat it, I’ll eat it. Calm down.

I waved my hands at him to stop. Matt likes to baby talk with me. It’s his love language.

Matt: It’s gonna be good! I promise!

He began setting things to heat, talking to me from the kitchen.

Matt: Did some Italian hurt you?! Did some Italian break your heart? Is that why you hate Italian food?

I laughed.

Me: Nope. Never been hurt by an Italian. Never dated an Italian, I’m pretty sure.

That was actually incorrect. My girlfriend is half Italian and she dies a little inside everytime I refuse an Italian dinner.

Me: It’s just kinda basic!

Matt: Whaaa?!! You can’t say that! What’s basic about it?!

I didn’t mind Matt feeding me. I spend so much time at work avoiding food that it’s nice to have carbs forced upon me when I don’t have to walk around naked. I ate the bowl of noodles and tough beef covered in tomato sauce. Maybe at a time the beef had been tender. Matt continued badgering me about Italian food for a while until it was clear he wouldn’t change my mind.

Matt: How is it?

Me: Fine.

Matt: Just fine?!

Me: I mean... it’s good? Thank you.

Matt: I still don’t understand what you like, Bubba.

Matt pouted, standing up to pour us each a glass of white wine. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Earlier in the day I’d arranged a hookup with a friend of mine who works in porn, however the whole thing had ended in disappointment for the both of us. My head wasn’t in it, and his penis wasn’t quite in me. I still smelled like him, even though I’d wiped my body down with baby wipes afterwards. Normally, I would have stopped home to shower or even asked Matt if I could use his, but I truly didn’t care, and during our prior session he’d asked me not to shower. He wanted to smell me. And smell me he did. To make things worse, I’ve also been dealing with a strange armpit rash, which has meant almost two weeks of no deodorant. It’s been the bane of my existence, one more personal burden while I deal with every other external hurdle of the moment. Thankfully Matt was into it.

Matt: Mmmm. You smell so good, like Selena!

I truly don’t mean to paint a caricature of Matt, but he is a bit of a caricature by nature. He draws out his words like a high schooler divulging juicy gossip. But he’s not a bad person by any stretch. Matt mostly means well. He’s just a remnant of the early aughts stuck in the glory days of indie rock and acoustic covers. He tries to understand my world, and often suggests movies I actually enjoy. He’s paid to watch Horror Noire with me, a documentary about the history of black horror movies; Belladonna of Sadness, which is one of the earliest iterations of hentai with a very dark spin; The Perfection, a psychological horror movie starring Logan Browning who I adore (but that movie was a bit of a miss to be honest), and a lot of other media I’ve actually enjoyed. But the man also irks me because I’ve become his Black Lady Guide to understanding current events and culture. And the worst part is that he has a million and one opinions he takes no pause to consider voicing.

I couldn’t help but wonder if he had made it out to protest. Was he in the streets for me? And the irony of my black self providing a service to him, a white man, in the midst of world wide protests and domestic race riots was not lost on me. I usually have a diverse collection of clients, but with the pandemic shutting down my club, I’ve had a smaller, less diverse pool lately. I can’t discriminate. I can’t filter who I service for my own comfort at this juncture. I take what I can get from whomever can afford my services.

Matt: Did you go to the protests?

Me: Yeah. I went yesterday.

Matt: I almost went the other day, but I’ve been working every time they’re going on.

That was real. Matt is an essential worker. He has to work so that I can get paid. I exhaled out the tiny bit of resentment I’d felt fomenting in my throat. I couldn’t be upset at Matt, and not just because he hadn’t had the opportunity to march with Black Lives Matter, but because while he isn’t perfect and can be very ignorant, I know he’s trying. He keeps articles from leftist newspapers he thinks I might like and actively keeps abreast of racial issues even when I’m not around. I don’t know if I’ve inspired him to be this way or if he truly cares, but regardless he’s doing the work.

And that’s what I’ve done for so many of my clients. I’m a magical negress who gives boners and information. And in my experience, men are much more susceptible to learning when there’s an arousal aspect to it. Value judgements aside, I’ve reached a lot of people with varying degrees of success from inspiring new understandings of gender identity and expression; advocating for a humanized understanding of sex work’s role in society; or educating them on how even I, a pretty light skin girl, experience racism and discrimination. I enjoy my work. I enjoy educating people. I know I enjoy a degree of privilege and it’s important for me to leverage myself, my access and resources to help those less privileged than me. But damn if it doesn’t wear a girl down sometimes!

There are times when I wonder, “Who takes care of me?” Truly and deeply, in the ways I need it. I have wonderful people who help me and support my work. I have a white ally and friend who has made it their mission to provide their free labor to me as reparations, and this gesture still chokes me up. I am lucky. I am not alone in this world. I have so much to be grateful for. But there are still times when I need. I struggle to keep up all the work I do. Sometimes I wish someone could take over for me while I take a nap and get a massage. But to quote Mary Mary: “Nobody told me the road would be easy.”

Easy, it certainly is not.

Especially now.

And still I persist.