Sometimes I Wish I Had Had an Abortion.

The Tinder Swindler and Why We Love to Hate Loving Women

“I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. ”

Last weekend, I watched the Tinder Swindler with my boyfriend. The documentary is two hours long, but the discussion we had around it took three hours. It mainly circled around victim blaming, and why as a collective culture we chose to so vehemently hate Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjöholm and Ayleen Charlotte for being conned into giving Shimon Hayut, or “Simon Leviev” all of their money.

What makes this comparison feel all the more stark is that the limited series "Inventing Anna" came out at the same time on Netflix. A show focused on unraveling Anna Sorokin, better known by her fake identity as German heiress, Anna Delvey. Inventing Anna follows journalist Vivian Kent – based on real-life journalist Jessica Pressler, whose 2018 The Cut article about Sorokin’s crimes inspired the series and uncovered the faux-socialites manipulative actions. However, followers of that show had only sympathy for the people that Anna defrauded; seeing them as unfortunate victims and loyal friends who were taken advantage of, rather than the opposite.

The response to both shows has been shocking, in particular because while essentially the situation is the same (master manipulator cons innocent victims out of thousands of dollars through deceit and by abusing their trust) the women that Hayut conned are seen as gold-diggers, shallow and greedy women who got what they deserved, while Anna's victims are seen as poor unsuspecting and overly generous kind-hearted individuals.

What is it about romantic scams that gives us permission to hate the women that fall for them? Why are we so quick to blame the women who are manipulated and abused into giving their life savings to a conman? To quote Cecilie Fjellhøy who gave over 100,000 pounds to Hayut, "if we were gold-diggers, we would be the worst ones in the world."

Historically, women haven't had access to financial independence until very recently. We haven't been able to own property, have our own bank account, and for a long time, we couldn't even control our own money. We were given allowances, or open accounts at certain stores where the men in our lives (our brothers, our fathers, our husbands) could carefully monitor what we spent money on. Futhermore, we weren't allowed to work, and so our value laid in what we could provide for our families, and namely, who we could marry. For a long time, women were a currency in a financial system that only valued (mainly, white) men as active participants. Our value lay in what sort of partner we could attract, and without access to our own money, it only made sense that we, or our parents, would look for a partner that could provide for us financially as much as possible. It's no wonder that we learned to value a man's wealth as a priority.

Hayut's victims were abused and attacked online for being gold-diggers, for only valuing his money over anything else. The documentary cruelly didn't focus on how long these women had been in romantic relationships with Hayut, some of them for over a year, in which he showered them with love and affection, and emotionally manipulated them into thinking he loved and cared for them. While many have said "it would be stupid to give money to a near stranger" wouldn't you think differently if it was your boyfriend who you've been seeing for 14 months? On top of that, the movie didn't do a good job of showing how psychologically challenging it can be to act rationally when you've been put into emergency mode, such as when Hayut told each of these women that he was in trouble, and that bad men were imminently out to get him. As women, we've been raised in this society to be carers, to value community and relationships. To try and turn off this innate responsibility in the midst of a crisis in which you think a loved one is in harm's way is nearly impossible.

I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. To punish and decry women for acting the exact way the way we are all supposed to act; to be loving to a romantic partner, to be trusting to someone they are in love with, is to say that we are stupid to trust our loved ones, or try to help them out when they're in need. It's saying that our kindness is a character flaw, and that our trust in people is a weakness.

What's ironic about this is that the men who are financially distrusting of women (assuming the women they are dating are just trying to take advantage of them, are trying to get their money etc.), who see romantic relationships as inherently suspicious and the kindness and cooperation required of relationships as a trap, will turn around and be bitter about women who embody the same characteristics. When a woman enters a relationship and is distrustful or cautious because she doesn't want to get scammed, she gets the #notallmen hashtag thrown in her face.

If a sex worker goes out and expects compensation for her time, her energy, and her body, she gets labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If a woman gets into a romantic relationship with someone who says that he loves and cares about her and needs her help, and she gives him money as a result, she's labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If she enters a romantic relationship with a man and as a result of her past trauma (or the learned trauma from other women's experiences) is slow to trust or reluctant to share financial responsibilities, she's labeled as a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. Whichever way, we can't win.

The Whorticulturalist 8/16/21 The Whorticulturalist 8/16/21

Thank You Furry Much

Last weekend, my best friend visited me in the city by the bay. It was the first time she had come to see me since I moved her, and it was nice. It's been a long time since we had spent this much time together, just the two of us, and I was looking forward to it. Even though we are nothing alike, we are also so similar that we've been mistaken for sisters before. So don't let anyone ever tell you that girls aren't complicated.

Saturday morning we were at the farmers market looking for ingredients to make a blue cheese tomato cobbler because we're gentrified dickheads who love to recycle and support local businesses, like the good ex-Christians we are. And while we took a break in the shade watching the cool boys on skate boards that we used to think were too old for us and now looked way too young, a literal parade of fucking furries walked past. There were foxes and mice and bunnies and a dragon, there were animals we didn't recognize, and some that we were pretty sure Disney had not given the license to recreate. It was great. Many a tail was being carefully held to avoid it being dragged along the dirty waterfront, and the faces of each character, frozen in a look of joy or blissful eagerness, made me feel like I was in a baseball stadium getting ready for a t shirt cannon.

Obviously, we immediately began speculating about whether *all* of the costumes were present.... i.e., if you fucked a furry would it be a human dick or a animal one? If a deer had a vulva, would it be au natural, and did that mean it bright pink fur? Our jokes immediately went to sex because that's what culture has grasped first and foremost; that furries were just people who wanted to be animals, primarily so they could fuck other animals.

But later that weekend I did a deep dive into the world of furries; visited some chatrooms, stalked some websites. Primarily, to be totally honest, it was out of a sexual curiosity. Out of all the kink and sex parties I've ever been to, I had never seen a single furry. Are furries part of the kink community, or were they something else all on their own? When I started to do my research, I found out they were a community all of their own; that people had been doing this since the 70s (and some even before that) and that it was so much more than just fucking someone in a mascot costume. People in the furry community carefully cultivate 'fursonas' which are animal figures or personas. They often have very specific avatars and personalities, and furries often make very complex and engaged stories surrounding their fursonas, and there's a LOT of furry art online. A LOT. Many furries make their own fursuits/costumes, which was often incredibly detailed and even include moving parts like swishing tails, blinking eyes, or twitching ears. A lot of furries participate in super active online chat rooms and often go to conventions. There are a lot of furry communities all over the world where people can share their interests in safe spaces, and play out being their fursonas without judgement.

When we don't understand something, we feel like we have license to make fun of it. We find ways to other it, to make it more maligned than it needs to be. We shame people for pursuing their interests, because they are not our interests. We often use sex to achieve these means, because sex is already such a shame-filled and taboo topic in our society. So many of us had crushes on characters in the Lion King, or Robinhood, or any other countless Disney movies. We call ourselves brave as lions, hungry as bears, lazy as house cats. We have no problem anthropomorphizing animals by calling them our fur children, and we have no problem acting ourselves like animals. We just have a problem with people who love it more than us, because we feel uncomfortable around things we don't understand, or don't identify with. So here's to the gorgeous furries of San Francisco, the confurence goers who see themselves as foxes or mice or lions or more. Here's to you guys living your best lives; I see you now, and I'm so happy that you've found a passion that makes you feel happy, and that makes you feel like you belong. Our planet may be a small one, but there's enough room at the table for everyone to have a seat.

The Whorticulturalist 2/18/21 The Whorticulturalist 2/18/21

Just Because I’m Slutty Doesn’t Mean I Want to Fuck You

“Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?”

I love a hibernating flirtation. While I am flirtatious by default, I am respectful in my friend groups to always maintain a respectability. I'm Sense and Sensibility, but with just a bit of ankle showing, and a fire Instagram full of thirst traps. I post sexual content sometimes because I'm a sexual person. I post feminist content because I'm a feminist. I post terrible dog photos because my dog is very dark brown, and also very fast. All of these things I love about myself, but sometimes it leaves me vulnerable.

A couple of weeks ago a friend dmed me. Let’s call him Joe. We had talked previously about wiring in his new house and about getting his cats to start an OnlyFans (OnlyFelines) and whatnot. But this time it was different. This time he led with "would you let me touch your butt." Which was great. I love flirting. And consent. I love when men ask me questions. We teased each other, and he talked about his kinks. We continued the conversation on Signal because it's encrypted and hey, we aren't fucking idiots. Joe sent me a couple of dick pics. He asked me where I wanted him to come. It was sensual and playful and all consensual play in early January between two adult friends. I thought it was chill, until a couple of days ago when I sent him a playful video.

It was set to disappear after one viewing on Instagram, and he told me after viewing it that maybe we should keep it halal, since we were in the same friend group. That's totally fine. However, Joe then went on to tell me that he had been drunk and high a couple of weeks ago when he had first messaged me and that the next morning, he had read over the text messages and realized he had gone too far. At no point did he ever say that to me, and so I had just continued flirting along and thinking things were cool. I felt like a fool for thinking that we were on the same page, and then an asshole, for flirting with someone who didn't feel comfortable with the situation. I hadn't asked the next day about consent because I hadn't known that he was drunk. Was I, a feminist blogger who writes mainly about sex and consent, someone who had just sexually harassed one of my friends?

I worried enough to talk about the situation with my best friend, who wrinkled her eyebrows when I told her the whole story. "Doesn't he have a girlfriend?" was her first question.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I had had no idea that Joe was in a relationship. I quickly pulled up his Instagram to see if I had missed the signs, if I had willfully not noticed them, but there was nothing. No vacation photos, no tags, nothing. I was horrified nonetheless and reached out to a mutual friend for confirmation, and the answer was yes. I was in disbelief. He had made me feel like it was me being weird, but really, he was the one who was in a relationship, and who had engaged in our interaction willingly, and deceitfully. I confronted him about it, and he told me that he knew that I hadn't known he was in a relationship, and he had taken advantage of it. I confirmed it with a different friend (who is male) who then told me that "he didn't want to excuse his behavior, but maybe they had been in a rough patch of their relationship, and that Joe had been really stressed about the election."

Time for me to unhinge my jaw and swallow some men whole.

“I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people.”

We were ALL stressed about the election. I haven't seen my primary partner in a year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. But I haven't been a dick about it. I felt disappointed, and angry. I felt awful for his girlfriend, and outraged on her behalf. I was angry that he never told me that he had a girlfriend, and that even when apologizing for taking it too far and making it too sexual, he never mentioned her. Not only that, but I was flushed with anger and grief, that I put myself out there as a sexual person because I like sex, but it gets used to do harm towards other people. I realized that while men fought for the sexual revolution and for the right for women to have more promiscuous sex, it wasn't really for women to be liberated. Here I am, a confident woman in the 21st century, and I keep meeting dickheads to whom consensual, safe, and clearly communicated sexual relationships are not enough for them. For them, the thrill is that it's not consensual. For them, the thrill is exploiting women's sexuality for their own benefit.

I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being sexual, I will get unsolicited dick pics on the internet all day and night. I'm tired of feeling like if I'm being prudish, that I will get mocked, pressured, or teased for not giving in to the whims of men. No matter what I do, it's somehow not the correct move, and that has nothing to do with my sexuality and everything to do with men wanting dominance and power. Men don’t want easy access to sex. They want to have power over women in sexual situations.

“I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they’ve planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women. ”

How do we move past this power struggle though? These were supposed to be my FRIENDS. These were men who prided themselves on being knowledgeable about consent, about being protective and mindful of misogyny, of patriarchal structures and deep rooted sexism. With friends like these, who needs enemies. As I've always said, women need to treat dating like a team sport. Met a fun man? Invite him to meet all your friends and have them all give you feedback on whether they felt comfortable around him. Know a coworker who once hooked up with the guy your roommate matched with on Bumble? Ask for a report. Now, I’m going to start calling out bad behavior in my friend groups and start asking them to be accountable for it. I am no longer going to try and protect shitty men. We are stronger when we band together, when we can create accountability and call men out on the harm they are doing. It also starts with unlearning the harmful belief that we must protect male feelings above our own. I used to worry that I would blow someone's life up when I called them out on their bad behavior. Now I know that it is not my responsibility to care for them. I told Joe that he had to tell his girlfriend about what happened, otherwise I would tell her myself, and I would bring screenshots. I called my other friend out for making stupid excuses on Joe’s behalf for why he had cheated on his girlfriend with me. I am demanding more from the men in my life, asking them the ways they've planned to take care of me, and how they intend to respect my boundaries, and how they will communicate with me. I am demanding excellence, and respect, both for myself and for my fellow women.

I am going to keep my insta DMs open for now, because I don't want to feel like I've been shamed into abstinence or that I am self-censoring because men have abused the privilege of my feed. But I am going to write about this, and blare it loudly across my platforms. I am going to put a head on a pike outside my inbox as a warning. Yes, I am sexual. I may show my ankles and maybe even my tits and ass. But I still deserve respect, and honesty, and I will no longer settle for anything less.

The Whorticulturalist is the mother of this magazine. She is a sex-positive blogger and creative who enjoys rock climbing, dancing, and camping. In her spare time, she’s probably flirting.

Artwork by Coral Black. Coral received her BA from Western Washington University in fine arts and interdisciplinary studies. She specializes in figurative and landscape oils, photography, and block printing, all with an emphasis on texture. When she’s not in her studio, Black is—who is she kidding, she's always in her studio. Black lives with her family in the PNW where she operates an illustration and design business. You can find more of her work at coralsuecreative.com

Hayley Headley 1/18/21 Hayley Headley 1/18/21

Period Poverty

“When we make periods something everyone is learning about, we are doing our part to uproot this stigma. ”

Every month, 500 million women and girls suffer from period poverty globally. This impacts every aspect of their lives. Period poverty is an inability to secure the necessary products to maintain menstrual health. This encompasses both micro and macro challenges to accessing sanitation and menstrual products.

There are a plethora of challenges to maintaining menstrual health, especially in nations already struggling to provide basic access to public health and sanitation. The UN has investigated many individual countries, but period poverty remains a global challenge to gender equality and sustainable development.

Financial barriers like the luxury taxes that remain pervasive in the West force many lower-income families to make hard choices between providing for the women in their lives and meeting more general needs. Globally, around one in ten women and girls cannot afford the products they need. This leads to improvisation, which puts them at risk of the many complications that come with improper menstrual health.

UNICEF reports that 2.1 billion people cannot effectively access sanitation. This extends beyond homes into schools and other public institutions and businesses. In the global south, where so many governments already struggle to provide public sanitation services, women and girls are disproportionately impacted.

Moreover, this inability to access the resources needed for good menstrual hygiene can lead to several different health complications. If you grew up in the Americas, you have already been scared straight about toxic shock, but many of us have the means to escape it. Even scarier, being unable to access proper period care can lead to reproductive tract infections, Hepatitis B, and an increased risk of getting cervical cancer, making period poverty a global health crisis.

But period poverty is about much more than just public health. In many parts of the world, young girls are forced out of their school routines to brave their monthly cycle at home. If we assume that every one of these girls bleeds for just three days a month in a ten-month school year, she will miss a month of class just because she is menstruating, setting her back for reasons entirely beyond her control.

These are the kinds of statistics and facts that confronted Nadya Okamoto when she was just starting as a period activist at 16. She says,” At the time, 40 states in the US had the “tampon tax” — a sales tax on period products considering them luxury goods.” It was at that time she knew she had to do something more.

When I spoke to her, Nadya had this to say about the founding of her non-profit PERIOD;

“I was inspired to learn more about menstrual inequity and period poverty after collecting an anthology of stories of their using toilet paper, socks, brown paper grocery bags, cardboard, and more, to take care of something so natural. Learning about the tampon tax, which I had not known about before age 16, was absolutely a big driver for me wanting to [start PERIOD].”

Today, PERIOD is an international movement, addressing period poverty in dozens of communities all over the world. The organization has three pillars - education, advocacy, and service. It has democratized what it means to be involved in the fight against period poverty. Offering logistical and (more recently) financial support to activists pushing for progress in their hometowns.

Nadya is no longer involved with the organization. She replaced herself as Executive Director earlier this year in January 2020, but she is continuing her period advocacy. She continues to announce new projects and create greater awareness. In fact, her latest venture was announced just last week.

In 2018, Nadya released her book PERIOD POWER. When asked why she wrote the book, she said:

“I wrote PERIOD POWER as a way to spark more conversations about periods, and try to create a resource hub for any reader to find more information about periods and period-health, and learn more about the fight against period poverty and period stigma.”

It certainly has done just that. Thousands of people have awoken to the many challenges facing women and young girls, and it has undoubtedly been the catalyst for their activism.

When I spoke with Nadya, I wanted to know what she saw as the causes of this unique form of poverty. She said, “Lack of access, research, and education are all components that play a role in period poverty. Period stigma is also a huge factor — because our society doesn't currently consider period products a necessity. The tampon tax and the inaccessibility of period products is further proof that our society views them as luxuries. This is a human issue, and it affects us all.”

When we look around the world, men continue to dominate in political spheres creating even more challenges to change in this realm of activism. As of October 2020, women make up just 25% of the world’s parliaments. Men and boys continue to be uneducated on the realities of periods and the challenges women are facing. The stigma our societies perpetuate stops even our politicians and lawmakers from learning more about these issues.

As millions of women and girls suffer through dangerously unhygienic periods and lead childhoods marred by a severe lack of education, one of the most significant challenges to uprooting this issue is the overwhelming lack of information on the problems facing the women and girls that matter.

Education is essential, but the loftier task is normalization. As a society, we need to be challenging ourselves to learn more about periods and period poverty. Talk more openly about your struggles with the people around you, talk with your representatives about it. Bring these issues to the forefront of the political landscape you live in and your social circles. When we make periods something everyone is learning about, we are doing our part to uproot this stigma.

There is so much more to be done at every level to tackle the issue. One of the crucial areas that need to be revolutionized is the corporate sector that profits arbitrarily from the people who menstruate who need the products they make and charge ridiculous prices. Activism needs to move from being just non-profit work and into the spaces, our oppressors are occupying-business. Nadya too feels that this is a big challenge to overcoming period poverty, saying when asked:

“I think that the nonprofit industrial complex is something that we need to deconstruct as it is still very much perpetuating inequity around the world. I absolutely think that business, specifically hybrid models and social enterprises that we’re seeing arise, have incredible potential to make a difference. Something that was very frustrating for me while working in the nonprofit sector was that I felt like I had to go fundraise before actually doing the work, and, at a certain point, I found that all my time was being spent fundraising. The beauty of a business is that if you create a successful model, there will be a point where the business is naturally generating revenue, and you’ll be able to dedicate more of your time to specifically making an impact versus raising money.”

Undoubtedly, the sustainability of both a movement and a non-profit is imperative to progress. And as we go forward in a fight that is so fundamental to so many people, those activists that are working hard to fix the problem must be doing so with everything they have. Nadya has been working in collaboration with her friend Nick Jain to start August. A company that wants to undo the stigma remains a challenge to achieving menstrual equality for all people who menstruate. They are currently focused on building a community that is working towards ending the stigma surrounding periods. In Spring, they will be releasing their very own line of period products.

As period poverty continues to be a challenge to women’s rights, development, and public health, there is hope that more people like Nadya are paying attention and putting in the work to understand its causes and deal with its impacts. There is so much to be done to combat this growing issue in every single country. I encourage you to get involved, get reading, and get educated. Every single voice counts because, for all the change that needs to be made, nothing will happen if we are silent.

Hayley is an emerging writer and journalist who works hard to create work that is fiercely feminist, anti racist and anti oppression on a whole. You can check out more of her work and content on her instagram @hayley.headley

Guest Author 12/15/20 Guest Author 12/15/20

How Sex Work Exposed My White Privilege

In 2020, people throughout the US and beyond have taken to the streets to protest systemic racism and injustice—yet how many of us have considered the effect of racism on sex workers? In my six years working as a professional submissive and switch at a commercial dungeon, I’ve seen firsthand how racism and other prejudices affect the entire sex worker community. In fact, my personal experience as a white sex worker, witnessing and questioning how to respond to acts of racism against my coworkers, is now mirrored by the way many white Americans are examining their own problematic attitudes and assumptions about race.

When I began working at a commercial dungeon in Los Angeles in 2013, the diversity of the dungeon community was one of the aspects I most appreciated. I worked with Black, Latinx, and Asian-American women, and ladies who’d grown up in countries including Ireland and Russia. Our community was also diverse in many other ways—we were different ages, came from different educational and economic backgrounds, and had different life trajectories, with some of us in college, others who were artists and still others pursuing successful business careers in addition to our dungeon lives.

The magic of our dungeon environment was that, as sex workers, we all shared a secret many in the outside world would judge us quite harshly for—and that one commonality frequently overpowered the other elements that might have divided us. I felt an instant bond with my coworkers that only grew stronger over time, as we all got to know each other in the often long waits between sessions. In the dungeon, I found a place where women didn’t judge each other by skin color, any more than we judged each other for our histories or our achievements.

Yet even as entering the dungeon allowed me to join an inclusive community of women, working in this environment also showed me, perhaps more than any other experience in my life, my own white privilege. It was common knowledge that women of color at the dungeon booked less sessions, especially when working as submissives. As my Black coworker Violet puts it, working as a submissive was “not as lucrative as I thought it would be” for two main reasons: One, the dungeon’s clientele consisted mainly of older white men who wanted to spank, tie up and tickle what they considered a sweet, innocent-looking girl. As Violet points out, these men were “trying to relive their youths, [which] did not typically include interacting with Black people in general, so they saw right past me and opted for the slim, pale-skinned, soft brown-haired girls-next-door.” Secondly, clients who were younger were still predominantly Caucasian and typically “felt a sense of white guilt, and were uncomfortable beating a Black woman.”

Similarly, Lulu, who was the only Mexican-American woman at the dungeon when she began working there, noticed “I wasn’t getting as many sessions as the other girls” and “came to the realization that clients favored white females.” Lulu decided to “get better instead of bitter” by “investing more in my fetish outfits” and attending workshops to “expand my experience as a player”—however, her efforts were not always as successful as she hoped.

Due to the exact issues Violet and Lulu describe, in my early days at the dungeon as a submissive, I was often in session making money while my African-American and Latinx coworkers sat in the waiting room downstairs—and the only reason I was working when they weren’t was the color of my skin. Violet describes the frustration of quitting her job to “dedicate my full-time hours to the dungeon,” while “only managing to score three to four sessions a MONTH”—and also having to “listen to my white coworkers complaining that they didn’t have a minute to rest between sessions.” Lulu similarly noted that while her hard work and skill “helped some,” white girls “who put in little to no effort in their craft continued to get session after session.”

Clearly, as women of color, Violet and Lulu had very different experiences at the dungeon than I did—ones that impacted their relationships with coworkers in addition to clients. And yes, I was one of those women complaining on days I had back-to-back sessions, without considering how my words might affect my fellow dungeon workers. My blind spots kept me from realizing that for some women, the dungeon might not always be the same welcoming, inclusive place I experienced—and my behavior directly contributed to that disparity.

As a white woman at the dungeon, I also didn’t have to deal with being confronted by stereotypes related to my race, the way many of my coworkers did. Asian-American submissives booked many sessions—as long as they were willing to play the “Asian schoolgirl.” My coworker Aimi, a first-generation Asian-American, says “there was definitely stereotyping—the worst of which was probably some guy calling to ask if I could speak English. When the desk mistress confirmed that I could, he was disappointed because he wanted an Asian girl who couldn’t.”

African-American women were also asked to take part in sessions that engaged directly with race. For instance, Violet recalls that her “very first client request was a plantation slave/master roleplay.” Women at the dungeon were never required to take these sessions, but even in being asked to do so, they had to deal with preconceptions based on the color of their skin—and I, as a white woman, did not. I was able to do my job without having to think about my greater ethnic identity, an added burden in an occupation that is already emotionally draining.

However, even as a white woman, I found that I couldn’t escape the negative effects of racism at the dungeon, just as none of us can deny the fact that racism affects us all in the larger world. At the dungeon, we had a repeat client we not-so-affectionately nicknamed “Racist Joe,” who liked to session with women of color and took every opportunity to comment on and ask about their ethnicities. One day, Racist Joe booked a double session with me and Lulu. By this point Lulu was a talented dominatrix, and I was always happy to session with her—with Joe, not so much. The two of us had sessioned with Joe before, and we knew what to expect: he wanted Lulu to “teach” me how to dominate him, how to give him a spanking and so on, even though I had already been a switch for a while and I knew how to do my job.

Lulu and I were suffering together through the session, trying to avoid Joe’s sweaty body as much as possible and pretend we were excited about the prospect of “torturing” this out-of-shape old white man, when out of nowhere, despite the fact that neither of us had uttered a curse word, Joe looked straight at Lulu’s lips and said: “You know, I’ve always wanted to wash a Mexican girl’s mouth out with soap, because you all have such dirty mouths.”

Lulu turned and walked right out of the session room, and I didn’t blame her. My shock had overtaken my own emotional reaction, and I knew my responsibility for the moment was to keep Joe occupied for however long Lulu needed to collect herself. I don’t even remember what I did for those minutes she was gone. I was panicked, caught up in a conflict that felt like it was both mine and not mine at the same time. I was disgusted by Joe’s words, but at the same time, I had no idea what Lulu—the person the comment had been aimed at—was experiencing. I could do my best to empathize, but since I had never received a derogatory comment based solely on my race, I couldn’t truly understand.

Eventually, Lulu returned holding the bottle of liquid hand soap we kept in the bathroom down the hall. She showed it to Joe and said, “I’d like to wash your mouth out with this right now,” but because she was a professional—even in a situation where her client was being completely unprofessional—she put the soap down and we finished the session.

As soon as Joe left and we were cleaning the room, I said, “I can’t believe he said that!”

Lulu replied, “Yeah, I just…I had to get out of there for a minute.” I wasn’t sure what else to say—or if Lulu even wanted to discuss the matter any further—and for better or for worse, that was the extent of our conversation. When I interviewed Lulu for this article, she said, “I remember feeling so angry and insulted I walked out of the session.”

Although I couldn’t understand exactly what Lulu was feeling, I was angry too.

Shortly after that session, I decided not to session with “Racist Joe” again. There were plenty of other things I disliked about his sessions, in addition to the offensive comments. But somehow, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. I was writing a novel at the time, and without my consciously choosing to include him, “Racist Joe” became a part of my story. He morphed into an unsavory diner owner in the 1950s, who could assault his waitresses and spit out racial slurs with impunity. I spent hours imagining a scene where one of those waitresses—secretly a powerful dominatrix—corners Joe and nearly cuts his balls off until he promises to behave himself.

Clearly, even though the real-life Racist Joe’s comments weren’t aimed at me, they had a strong effect on my psyche. I’m still thinking about what Joe said—and about how I reacted, or didn’t, and what I could have done differently—more than two years after the incident took place. Maybe a part of me sensed this was about more than one isolated experience; now, a few years later, I’m seeing my own struggle reflected on a much broader level. White people who consider themselves on the side of equality are now acknowledging that they’ve contributed to the problem of systemic racism, simply by going along with the status quo.

I still don’t know what exactly I might have done during this situation: Should I have voiced my disapproval of Racist Joe’s comments to his face, even though he was a client? Should I have offered more support to Lulu after the fact, or would doing so have only made her uncomfortable? But I do know that in the greater upheaval we’re all living through at the moment, white people can’t remain inactive, paralyzed by our worries. We can’t go on blaming the “Racist Joes,” the people whose behavior is blatantly problematic, without acknowledging the larger system of inequality that allows injustice both obvious and insidious to continue.

If the escalating problem of police brutality and the higher impact of COVID among people of color has made one thing clear, it’s this: our society won’t change unless people of all races take part in dismantling systems of oppression. We have to ask the uncomfortable questions. We have to think about how racism, prejudice and inequality affect every aspect of our society, even the ones—like sex work—we might consider unimportant or overlook.

We have a long way to go, but one thing is clear: silence and inaction isn’t an option. Until we can acknowledge the impact of systemic racism in even the most marginalized areas of our society, we can’t truly take steps toward equality for all humans.

SC Stephanie is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC, and I have been published in the HuffPost, Entropy, and many other publications.

Hayley Headley 11/18/20 Hayley Headley 11/18/20

My Sex is For-Profit, Just Not Yours

Our whole lives, women are taught to fear sex, sex work, and sexuality. Whether the message is given directly by our parents or indirectly by the society surrounding us, we learn it. Often, we don’t unlearn it.

Cautionary anecdotes tell us that a woman who enjoys sex as a form of liberation is nasty or somehow lesser. While folktales remind us that a woman who relegates sex and family life to mere duties is virtuous and reverent. These stories are told to indoctrinate us into a world that would rather use female sexuality for profit without compensation. The problem is whether we are getting paid or not; women are constantly partaking in sex work. Not because we voluntarily entered into that field or even consciously chose to be sex workers, but because businesses and individual men alike continue to profit from the female form. It is a part of the unmonitored “market for sex and affection.”

Our society doesn’t value female work; this goes beyond equal pay and touches on every aspect of women’s rights. The labor that goes into being beautiful, or even just presentable, goes uncompensated but not unutilized. This is the same with the work that goes into housekeeping and motherhood and speaks to why our society isn’t eager to pay for those tasks. They are a woman’s place - it is a duty, not a job.

In a capitalist society, women are like nature; we hold no value unless we are broken down for profit. This manifests in the unconscious competition that plagues the female psyche. On top of that, the lingering knowledge that men are free to consume and discard women at will pours fuel onto the fire of female insecurity.

Whether it is using women in advertising, free to enter clubs, or inviting us out to a party - the idea that women are products or currency is everywhere. This keeps us vying for attention and value at the expense of not just ourselves but for all women. In the eyes of the capitalist world that surrounds us, we are no better than a tree in essence. The only difference is that we can partake in the market, in so far as we can change ourselves to be more appealing - ripe for the taking.

Ashley Mears, a prominent sociologist, and former model, thought of bodily capital when writing her first book and developed it even further in her second book, Very Important People. It is the sum of all the potential value we have to offer to this market. In an interview with Tyler from the Mercatus Center, Mears makes it clear that we can only access that value with the help (manipulation) of a third party - usually a man. She writes about how this plays out in the context of the high-end party scene where promoters recruit young, broke models from the streets of New York to be pretty near rich men. But this concept of needing a third party to manage or reap the (minor) benefits available to pretty women spills over into every other part of life.

“Women can be gorgeous, but our society reinforces and maintains that beauty is worthless when she controls it. ”

We all need a “promoter,” someone who manages our beauty for us in some way, someone that unlocks its monetary value. If a woman is beautiful, she must pretend to be ugly or not comprehend her beauty. That way, a third party (a man, generally speaking) can explain to her the depth of her attractiveness. Not only does this put the man in control of her capital, but it distances her from understanding the underlying labor and value therein contained.

When we are merely submissive participants, lame objects in this market, we forget how much value there is in that bodily capital, which we do have.

That doesn’t mean we can’t reject this structure, but it does reframe how we can view sex and sexual relationships. Even if we can recognize all the micro and macro impacts of this invasion of capitalist logic on interpersonal, sexual, and friendly relationships, can our partners?

Understanding the subtleties of a market system should make us question what it means to have respectful and healthy sexual relationships.

Ornela, who works with the feminist organization FENA in Argentina, argues that we can’t be having good sexual relationships. Saying, when I spoke with her: “La relaciones sexo afectivas se han convertido en transacciones, sean capitalizado. Sean vuelto capitalistas”

“Sexual and emotional relationships have become transactions; they have been taken advantage of. They have become capitalist currency.”

Both in the sense that sex with powerful men gains women clout and in the sense that being seen with hot women gives men access, leverage, and power. The problem is that this power is not evenly distributed. Women don’t gain enough from these interactions for them to be fair, but oppression is built into the capitalist superstructure.

This extends beyond consensual sex. Part of the alluring nature of the superstructure is that it imbues the undeserving with power. When men hold all the tools to unlock the intrinsic value that is trapped within the female form, they are inclined to feel that they own it. That female sex, sexuality, and to an extent, labor is theirs for the taking. This leaves a gap in the system that turns sexual violence in all its forms into another malignant transaction. Yet another way that men can exert their unearned superiority.

In a way, capitalism has come to pervert the act of sex on a whole. Making it a perpetual form of structural violence that forces women into a subservient role. The unpaid laborers upon which this market is built. Much like the arbitrary use of a fair trade label, “consensual” sex is a rubber stamp that negates the oppression that is embedded in this market.

She goes on to say: “No estamos en relaciones sexo afectivas responsables y libres sino que las mujeres somos objetos de un mercado de consumo. Hablamos de un mercado sexo-afectivo donde los hombres son los que compran, los hombres son los que tienen poder, los que tienen la plata, son los que tienen mejores trabajos, [etc].”

“We are not in affectionate/sexual relations, responsible and free; instead, women are objects of a consumer market. We are talking about the market for sex and affection where the men are the ones who buy, the men are the ones that have the power, that have the money, that have better jobs, [etc.].”

There is an undeniable truth to what she says. Men have access to better salaries, better jobs, more money, all of these things from which women are deliberately excluded. Everything about our various cultural understandings of the role of bodily capital in society predicates on a system in which men are the profiteers in this market. They hold all the power.

When you apply this logic to relationships, as we have come to do, we can never have equal partnerships. Moreover, women are continually partaking in this unspoken sexual commerce - unwitting participants in this nuanced form of sex work.

Ultimately, your sex is always for profit because someone is gaining something from your implicit oppression.