Compartments

I've added a new blog to my little list. Compartments: Secrets, Lies, and Living a Double Life

It's written by a callgirl, and goes through a surprisingly informative bit of her daily life. As an anthropologist, these are the details that tell me the most. The thing is... I knew in my head that a lot of women find sex work fulfilling and practical (at least as much as nine-to-fivers, that poor despairing cube-farming lot), but reading someone talk about daily life like this is just... different.

She's not blind to the practicality, or to the sexism. She's not blind to the emotional drain or the ego boost. She's not one of those victimized and exploited women who simply don't have the will or motivation to go get "real" jobs.

There are some things that are just about her, things like Lying to a Boyfriend, and the occasional entry about the jobs themselves, such as Fat Men Can’t Come. What was most interesting to me was not the humor or the frankness of the entry, but the conversation afterward. I'd never gotten a chance to hear about the "afterward." After the job's technically done, after obligations on all sides have been met. What is there? Sometimes a conversation about porn. Not so different from anyone else's post-sex familiarity, but certainly just the "single serving" version. She talks about that too, in Immediate Intimacy.

The temptation is always to look at this journal and treat it like a side-show curiosity. "Lookie there! One o'dem there whores just like on da HBO!" But that wouldn't be fair to the candid and sometimes moving accounts here. I knew before that sex work couldn't be all terror and desperation and sleaze, but even though I don't know where she lives or what she looks like or whether she'll have a call today... even if I don't know her as well as I feel I do... there's a person out there.