International Day of the (Sex) Worker

I begin at her feet, my crown resting against her soles, my hands pulling her into me as I pray life into her body. When I get off my knees to meet her I find her at her heart first, using touch to rock her into safety, each connection of my hands to her skin slow and deliberate. I use my hands, my body, my braided extensions, my blended butters, and my sexual aliveness to summon the arousal that she thought had long since left her body after that last betrayal.

The lights are on.

I see her and speak to her, pausing for the words to land and I sit in witness. I name the things I see in her and I get to know what she knows about herself. I name the obvious things like the way her she folds up when she is tickled and the way she sucks the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth right before she moans. I name the things a lover would miss, like the way her belly draws her pelvic floor up when her inner thigh is caressed and the way she fights to hold her belly in when her body wants to let go of it all and explore the orgasm.

We always keep the lights on.

She sees me, remembering that while sex can (and historically has been) a place for violence and shame and abandonment, that is not where we are today. Today, she is with me, and I am a reminder of how powerful her erotic body is, not how vulnerable.

People who have never been worshipped by a whore often have a story about sex workers and what exactly it is that we do. Too often their interaction with those of brave enough to invite strangers into to such an intimate magic is limited to the porn they steal and the stories of survival sex workers whose bodies also long for dignity in and out of the work. This story is not about the sex worker who has not chosen this labor or is left in a space where the choices don’t seem like choices at all.

This is a story about me, and the countless workers like me who engage in the healing work of the erotic body because we are living in our purpose. So many sex workers, exchanging hours of intimate time for a livelihood, get left out of the conversations around labor. Facing the labor of the erotic is hard for so many humans, as intimacy is framed as both an entitlement and a worthless thing, and the selling of a type of sex that belongs patriarchy confuses the scam that binds it to love and ownership.

Conversations about the need for erotic labor are as avoided by those calling for the abolition of sex work as their interaction with the erotic laborers. They frame work like mine as an exception to the rule, but that is a lie. My clients may be better able to articulate their need for erotic labor, as my price point exposes to me to a certain level of western education more often than not. That does not mean the person who can’t clearly name what it is tending to isn’t experiencing the same medicine. We are all a part of this workforce, and those of us in the work pose one of the biggest threats to patriarchal driven capitalism today.

We remind people that pleasure is possible. That every story our bodies has experienced does not have to be held. That we can allow someone to care for us, and that harm won’t always be the consequence. We invite dignity into sex where religion has left shame.

You can’t forget us in your labor movements.
We are the first on the scene and the last to leave.