August 06, 2004.
I’m going through my old notes and came across this:
I’m enjoying a brief stint of self-imposed exile. Tomorrow I have two long gigs, back to back, so I declared today a work-only period: I read until it hurt, left town for one of the larger research libraries, and returned late and exhausted. I’m too tired for a boy in my bed, so instead I’m sorting email and stretching my legs.
I have these moments when I wonder how long I can sustain this split life. But then today, when I slipped out of the rain and into a used bookstore, I had enough cash on-hand to buy several art books and a collection of essays without emptying my account for the month. So, yes, for a while I can.
Nothing has changed.
I’m still ambivalent – unsure of whether I can sustain the double life, unsure of whether I can stop. And reading this now reminds me that I’m grateful to the men who pay, even when I deal with their drama and baggage and compulsive surveillance. It still comes down to that feeling of going into a bookshop and knowing that I can buy an art book without sacrificing my ability to pay rent.
And the world just keeps on spinning.
“several art books and a collection of essays”
or
Super Pii Pii Brothers?
Lovely entry.
And it calls up grad school— a long-ago world I do miss.
And makes me miss used bookstores filled with art ‘n’ architecture books.
Nothing like a treasure hunt in a used book store and finding a clutch of wonderfully eclectic and obtuse but compelling books …ideally on a rainy/snowy/stormy weekend with a good reading lamp in front of a cheerful fireplace …and hot chocolate…
I know exactly what you mean. Especially when it comes to books…
“It still comes down to that feeling of going into a bookshop and knowing that I can buy an art book without sacrificing my ability to pay rent.”
But is that really what it “comes down to”? I’m sure that’s a part of it and a big one, but if it were just the financial freedom to buy art books or airline tickets, I suspect you would long ago have followed the more conventional path and found some absurdly wealthy zillionaire, and would now be buying serious art and not art books. I won’t say that you are like the old-time baseball players who boast that they “would have played the game for free”, but the way you’ve nailed your colors to the mast of whoredom (even if you are always tempted to pull the flag off the mast, it’s apparently still flying) suggests that it comes down to a lot of things, of which the financial freedom you mention is one, and obviously a really important one, but — there’s more, isn’t there?
To Peccator: on wealthy zillionaires.
From my observations, to most sex workers, such ‘conventional path’ is a complete and total LOSS of freedom. A golden cage indeed.
We chose whoredom because we don’t want to depend on whims and desires of one man.
Even if you love that man, and he happens to be ridiculously wealthy – it is still extremely scary; and unfortunately, those fears are not exactly unfounded.
P.S. As far as I understand, our hostess does not mind discussions in comments between posters. If I am wrong, let me know.
thais: or to quote my father?
“if you marry for money… you’ll earn it”
Thais has an excellent point…a golden cage is still a cage.
Being in any relationship is difficult…whether the exchange is based on currency or “presence”. It’s when the relationship only serves one party that it becomes labored and draining… rather than a mutually beneficial partnership.
We, as humans, need relationships, but do we need exclusive ones? It is doubtful that any one individual can meet all the needs of another…as we inevitably change those needs/wants also change. My parents were married for 62 years …but they both had external interests and I was informed by one of my brothers that my father had a mistress when he was 83. His companion’s husband was disinterested in sex, as apparently was my mother. They were discreet to the point that I only found out about it after he passed away. My wife encouraged me quite a few years ago to find an outlet for my passion as she has a very low libido and was on a spiritual path. She preferred that to having me leave entirely…she even presented me with the rules (there are 4) to “abide” by.
Leading a double life is draining as Debauchette indicates…but don’t we all…to some degree …lead a more vivid internal life than the armour we present to the outside world?
Peccator – I’m thinking the term ‘financial freedom’ doesn’t really apply to the marry-rich strategy. When you marry rich, you marry into someone else’s wealth, not your own. Plus, well, you’re married. I’m with Thais on the ‘gilded cage’ analogy.
So maybe I should stress that it isn’t just having the cash, but having the cash in my own wallet.
And it’s true – there’s more. The sex plays a large role. The uncomplicated nature of those relationships appeals to me. And the fact that I’m still doing it, even though I don’t need to, says something. It’s the freedom, foremost. Sexual and financial.
(Oh, and I’m completely supportive of dialogue or conversation within the comment areas.)
And I’m definitely with you, Tryingtolearn, on the exclusivity question. Relationships function on so many levels, and when people grow together, they might be tightly knit in some areas but distant in others. For whatever reason, sexual intimacy seems to be the first to go in a lot of relationships, but that doesn’t mean those relationships aren’t strong otherwise. So I’m a big supporter of mistresses and man-friends and bed-mates.
“And it’s true – there’s more. The sex plays a large role. The uncomplicated nature of those relationships appeals to me. And the fact that I’m still doing it, even though I don’t need to, says something. It’s the freedom, foremost. Sexual and financial.”
and don’t forget it’s socially reprehensible. which was the reason of yours i liked best.
i think loyalty’s a lot more important than monogamy.
this “august 6, 2004″ title right at the top of your blog is really fucking up my inner space-time continuum…
“I’m grateful to the men who pay, even when I deal with their drama and baggage and compulsive surveillance…” That last part surprised me – I thought you hated surveillance! Can’t you tell the one(s) into the surveillance to take a hike?
I’ve mentioned this before, but the sex thing for me is the only negative – everything else is great. But my wife doesn’t see it that way – any kind of sex without her (outside of my masturbation) is grounds for divorce. Even looking at porn while masturbating is ‘objectifying women’. I guess I should’ve married one of those understanding Eurpoean types who expect their men to have a mistress…
I should probably clarify that – it’s pretty misleading. I mean that I’m grateful for the good, and for that, I seem to be willing to risk the bad. The fellow who has me under surveillance is someone I dislike very, very much – if I were willing to expend the energy, I’d hate him – and I’ll never see him again as a client. But I’m still grateful for the financial support more generally. I was reminded of that when I saw this old post.
tryingtolearn: i’m really curious what your rules are…
My French Canadian wife gave me the rules about 3 years ago and I only decided to follow up on it last year after she had been gone on a silent retreat for 2 weeks into a 4 week meditation …so foe a week before that and a week after it is like walking on eggshells…mindfully
Without further ado…
In order of priority:
1: She absolutely positively doesn’t want me to tell her that I have a mistress
2: It can’t be anybody she personally knows
3: It can’t be anyone she doesn’t know in our Condo complex
4: More of a suggestion actually … Ideally I should have more than one mistress
I have observed the first 3 but frankly have enough difficulty with them that I am not smart enough to juggle more than one mistress (metaphorically…although I’m thinking some combat?…assertive? sex may involve bodily picking up a certain smoking hot woman with one arm and using the other to do some good old fashioned bodice ripping …then…but suspense and imagination adds spice don’t you think…)
Now I know why my Dad cheered up when he was 83…
Thais and d., I very much had the kinds of thoughts you both wrote about in mind when I suggested that that most likely “there was more”. Even if the rich guy strategy can be made to “work” in the narrow bookeeper’s sense of taking some meaningful piece of his swag and moving it permanently to your own account, it comes encumbered.
For the thought-out whore, the big thing seems to be that financial independence and all other benefits need to come strictly on one’s own terms to be worth having. A whore I love likes to say that “there’s nothing more independent than an independent escort”.
And finally, not that I’m any great expert on the topic, but I think Gentleman Whore is right that many of the people who are drawn to whoring are drawn to it not despite the fact that it is deemed socially reprehensible, but BECAUSE of it. The same whore I love once doubted that she’d ever have gotten started if it was respectable.
I would agree with the above – we as people need different people to satisfy different parts of ourselves. I know enough people who have had and have lovers and find that this works well, but to me it seems that the worst culprit becomes the desire to tell, which, in several people I have observed, seems to grow and grow until they can’t deal with it anymore.
Personally, I prefer to stick to the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t show” adage, but then I historically have never had that need to tell. Who knows, maybe it’ll come.
06 August 04… I wish we could read your oldest archived notes— to get a picture of you at the beginning of the story…