A bird swooping down upon him had sent him scurrying for cover. He soon found himself inside an old shed. He stopped to catch his breath and to curse the impertinent creature that had driven him here. So he had snatched her egg. So what?

Looking around him he noticed a suitcase. Being a bit impetuous, he opened the clasp. Inside he found an old map and a train set. He chuckled to himself wondering on what kind of holiday one would find it necessary to take one’s own train.

Various boxes were stacked against the wall and impressed by the contents of the suitcase he decided to see what else he might find. In the first box were a rusty old anchor and an assortment of ropes. A tent that smelled of old grass was revealed in the second box. The third box was taped shut so he moved on to the fourth and found it full of shells, and smooth stones.

He held a conch shell delicately to his ear and was surprised to hear the sound of the sea. He wasn’t really a sea-faring type, not after that incident several centuries ago with the pirates. It hadn’t been his fault of course. Some thought him impossible but he had been young and completely unaware that pirates were without any sense of humour.

Impatiently trying to banish the old memories he moved on toward the corner where he found the suit of armour. He squealed with glee for this was certainly his most important find in this Aladdin’s cave. And this last piece of treasure had given him a very good idea. But of course as everybody surely knows very good ideas come easily to imps. Now that bird was about to find out who’s boss.

And so she lay there, on that steel framed bed in a tiny, white room.  The Wesley Mission was sterile and clean, the perfect place to rest, reuniting with her grief until she could be reunited with him.  With Lee, the son that after all these years she had finally given herself permission to grieve.

Piece – What a funny thing life is, it never fails to amaze me how different every human being I meet is. I have always been a people watcher, but the stories I have made up in my head over the years about all the different people I see so often do not come close to the reality of the stories people have to tell if you just bother to ask them. But even the people in life that you meet and that you think to yourself how funny it is that you can have so much in common, when you get down to the very core of that person you are so unlikely to be the same. Take siblings for example, you may think that the fact that you grew up in the same house, with the same mother and the same father, go to the same schools and have largely the same friends that you will somehow grow into comparable people who function in largely similar ways. But life shows again and again that even with all of these things in common you somehow end up as such different people that sometimes it almost hurts.

 

Cheers (terrified)

If, by the glorious grace of grey skull, I live to be in my nineties then right now I am one-third through my life. Done. Dusted. Gone. Tick.

I feel like somewhere around my thirtieth birthday hard and fast revelations started flying at my face. Revelations that have led me to believe, and at the same time practically apply, a few things so that future Claire can be a purple rinsed Nanna who is fucking stoked at her ninety innings.

They sound a little something like this…

For goodness sake, just do it and stop talking, thinking, pondering, wondering about it. Cut your hair. Wear the frock.  Kiss them. Make the thing. Write the thing. Say the thing. Tell the thing you love the thing. Have sex with the thing. Quit the thing that makes you miserable. Tattoo the thing on your person.

Stop trying to problem solve problems that don’t exist yet, and instead start trying to find ways to navigate the problems that do.

Stop apologising. For yourself, your thoughts, your opinions, your waistline, your rants, your pictures of your children and your breakfast. Just stop. Because apologising is just another way of justifying your worth and your value. According to the young people I work with the only time you should apologise is if you hurt someone’s feelings. Or if you fart in their presence. I think this is sound advice. Be considerate and don’t be a dick. Because, you are worthy. You are valuable. You are more than enough exactly as you are in this very moment right now. That’s a fact.

Move. Move your body, your mind and whole mountains to make sure the people you think are superb know that you think they’re superb.

Tell your stories. They’re our most glorious currency. Your stories matter. Even the one about the time you got a perm or about the boy who lived in Nundah. They matter. You matter.

The lovely bald barista who makes my soy chai latte’s has a ’50 summers left’ list, because as a man in his fifties he figures he at best has fifty summers left. Fifty years feels like a whole lifetime, but, fifty summers feels like too few. I find it a grand tragedy that so few of us are really living, because we’re most definitely dying.

Right now. We’re dying. We. Are. Dying. Fact.

In the grand scheme of the whole planet, of the years that have existed before us and will exist after us, we are but a temporary blip. So why on glorious earth, do I worry so gosh darn much about the size of my skirt, about what that birch in grade eleven said, or about any allusive notion of what I make having to be perfect? I don’t need to be perfect and it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to happen. Immediately. To seek out the pleasure, say yes, create action, go with the flow and stop giving a shit about the shitty things and start giving a shit about the other better shit. The me shit.

I owe it to future Claire to give a shit.

So that she can glance back at the ninety years before her and praise me for taking my own advice, showing up and making the best kind of glittery shit happen.

It’s always been there but I notice it more now because I am aware of what is causing it. I call it the cringe factor and when I say I notice it more, I notice it A LOT more. It refers to how strongly I cringe inside at that moment a man says something so ridiculously entitled or smacking with privilege that his obvious ignorance is blatantly on display. As a sex worker I am privy to a lot of men and so I get to cringe a lot.

I must first include a disclaimer: I love men. I do. I am straighter than an arrow and love men. I love their ruggedness, I love their strength, I love their simplicity and for my work I love their dicks. So yeah, you better believe it, I love men.

But as we can like something we can also see the flaws within it. I recognise that men are generally good people but that society moulds them into privileged, entitled nitwits who then can’t see their own privilege. And who then raise other boys into privileged, entitled nitwits who then can’t see their own privilege and I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.

I also see where men choose to remain so blatantly ignorant that I am often left wondering how so many of them can actually have so much confidence or power when they are so blind to the reality of any part of the world that isn’t middle-aged cis het white man. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all bluster and bullshit – many men are very unhappy, they just don’t know why.

The “why” is that the experience men are living isn’t a well-rounded experience. They are taught they are the top of the food chain and that everything beneath them exists to serve them (namely women). Women are waking up to this and going “um HELL NO” and talking back and men are struggling with this. Up to this point men have basically had everything handed to them, from sex to jobs to loans to acceptance. Men make the bare minimum of effort and are validated at every turn. It would be a heady existence. It also makes for a steep drop when the rest of the world wakes up to this and says “um, no more”.

And this is where we are today. Men are at the precipice of this steep drop as more and more women click on to our power and value and refuse to settle for anything that violates our boundaries or tries to paint us as inferior.

As a sex worker I see this demonstrated daily. I see it in the enquiries I get to things men say in bookings with me that are really off-the-chart cringey. What these men say to me confirm for me, every day, that it’s time for things to change and for men to shape up and get on board with intersectional feminism and it’s view for a better society.

Let me give you some examples:

1. Mr Insecure Simpleton

I have a regular client who sees me about once every couple of months. He’s an ok dude, your classic middle-aged cis het white guy. Married, a bit out of shape, military, country boy. You get the picture.

We are doing the do one day and he says to me casually “you should really sort your tan lines out”. CRINGE. Yes, he was just kidding, but the entire comment was just so unnecessary. Now consider that I need to keep the booking professional but fun – he has paid money for this so I do want to give him the best possible experience.

What I really want to do is lose my shit at him and tell him what’s on my mind! Instead I ignore his comment and in my head I think “yeah, ok dude, I’ll get right on that as soon as you sort out the plethora of age spots that are threatening to cover your ENTIRE BODY”.

The audacity to criticise women’s bodies is something society conditions men to do. It almost then just comes unconsciously to them. He ain’t no oil painting, and he wasn’t trying to be mean, yet due to his own masculine insecurities (out of shape, aging etc) he thought nothing of criticising something about my appearance in order to make himself feel better.

2. Mr Let Me Just Google That For You

At least a few times a week men will contact me to bark “what are your rates?”. CRINGE. I maintain several advertisements on varying escort directories, plus my own website, plus Twitter (which directs to my website). Also, you know, there is Google, so any potential client can easily find my rates with a simple Google search. I mean, as much fun as it is to maintain a website and curate and create content for my Twitter, those things are done with the express purpose of providing all necessary information for my potential clients. That way, all the client has to do is decide if he wants to see me, and if so, make a booking.

The moment I get a “what are your rates” type question I know full well the guy is an entitled hoofwanker and is NOT the type of client I gel with. Lord knows where they found my number and why they didn’t just look at the prices contained there. Sometimes I ask them, but more often than not their answer is something unhelpful like “a mate gave it to me”. I’ve learned it’s pointless to ask them. So depending on my mood I may reply with a link to my website or more often than not I just totally ignore the message.

When a man cannot take a few minutes out of his day to expend the effort to find, for himself, information that is freely available in myriad places on the big ol world wide web, it SCREAMS entitled. It says that this man doesn’t want to have to put effort in and expects others to do even his simplest bidding for him. Can you imagine how god awful it would be to have sex with a guy like that? I don’t respect people like that so seeing that guy as a client would be a nightmare of navigating his entitlement which I prefer not to do if I don’t have to.

3. Mr Now

“Are you free now?”. Ok there are actually two issues with dudes like this. First of all the inanity of choosing to use the word “free” with a hooker just defies all logic. I make it quite clear in all of my advertising how much it is going to cost to spend time with me. Like seriously, find a better way to ask for a booking.

And secondly, “now”. CRINGE. NOW IS NOT A TIME. If you want a booking in twenty minutes SAY THAT. Don’t ask me if I’M free now because you want a booking in twenty minutes. My head is starting to hurt even trying to figure out the logic (if any) at use here.

When potential clients ask for a “now” booking it speaks to their assumption that their time is all important and everyone else can just fit in with them. They seem to have no concept of the fact that I am a real human being and I might be, oh I don’t know, living my life and not just prancing around in my underwear waiting for his booking. Ugh. Honestly, these are some of the worst.

I have taken to responding with “are you here?”. What’s hilarious is that these guys don’t even get it. They go “no, where are you”. And I’m like “at home”. Then they’re all “address”. And I’m like “for what?”. They STILL don’t get it. If they are going to play entitled I’m going to play dumb. It really becomes so boring so quickly though because they are so blindly demanding and can’t even see how offensive they are.

4. Mr Conformed to Society and Now Hates His Life

The things some of these guys say about their wives makes my heart break for those women. And in a way, I’m pleased that these guys come see me for sex and leave their poor wives alone. And not only their wives, just their lives in general. These guys got married and had kids because “it’s what you do” (say in a robotic voice) and so they did it. But as life goes on they are not fulfilled, these men are unhappy but have no idea how to actually go be themselves and get a life they enjoy.

I’ve had men talk about how their wife isn’t interested in sex after a baby (you think – she just had a 10lb HUMAN BEING come out of her, maybe leave her be for a while); how she doesn’t get turned on anymore (gee I wonder why, when your idea of foreplay is to poke at my clitoris with the force of a jack hammer. Hint: that’s NOT enjoyable); how life is just so busy (hmmm, you found time and money to come see me, tell me more about how busy you are); or how they’re just not in love with their wife anymore (yeah, well real life ain’t like the movies dude). ALL SORTS OF CRINGING.

The common theme in all of these complaints is that the man is blaming the woman somehow. I’ve never had a man say “yeah, I’m shit at foreplay so I totally see why she wouldn’t be getting turned on”. Nope, the only important piece of information he can see is that “man want sex”, not “how can I reignite this relationship with my wife / partner so it’s mutually enjoyable for both of us”. I find that so sad.

Across all of my clients, yes all of them, even the more enlightened ones, the common element I notice is they are still so damaged by their social conditioning that they don’t even notice. Men don’t seem to realise that patriarchy (teaching men that they are entitled and privileged above all others) harms them too. They think because they are at the top of the food chain that they must have got out unscathed. But not one man makes it to adulthood unscathed.

I have a client who has been with me the entire 5 years I have been working. He is an extremely evolved man, deeply sensitive, very thoughtful, engaging to speak with, kind, considerate, aware of his privilege, would help anyone in a bind. You name it, and as far as positive traits go, this guy has it. But, and it really does pain me to have to say “but” here, he still does the occasional thing here and there that makes me cringe. I cringe the least with this guy, but I still cringe.

It might be as minor as him speaking over me while I’m telling him something or him dismissing what I said without acknowledging it. In the big scheme of things, yes minor, but when women cop that kind of misogyny all day every day it can sting even more when we endure it from someone who we know is a Good Guy. And I know, if I mentioned my concerns to this guy he’d be totally fine with it and would change his behaviour as he deemed necessary.

But I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to be the “behaviour police” for men. That’s still requiring women to facilitate men being better. It’s a backhanded way to blame women for men’s behaviour (well, you should have told me) and it’s not ok. Women have figured out how to consider others and function in society in a way that doesn’t oppress others.

Men need to step up and do the same. Men need to better themselves for themselves. Men are capable of so much more and are selling themselves short by continuing to buy into this shallow societal conditioning that tries to tell them what defines a “man”. Give it up guys. Women are waiting for you to be better. But we won’t wait forever.

Women have found our voices and we will no longer be silent. If you won’t better yourselves we will move on and create the world we know humanity should be living in. We will leave you behind where the only people you will have left are other misogynistic men and women and where you will all be trying to control one another. Doesn’t sound so fun does it?

Maybe then you will realise it’s time to start showing us with your actions that you value us and commit to no longer oppressing us. Stop making us cringe. Only then will women start taking you seriously and truly believe that you are our allies and our supporters in creating a brave new world that will benefit both men AND women.

Twitter @AvaGraceVIP

Until finally, evolution. Like bacteria, it multiplied. Morphed. Used whatever it had to. Not just to be as it was.

Action speaks louder than words to some. Some need to hear words to act, but act they do in the long run. Thankful. At the end of the day, thankful. Of everything.

I was given the privilege of abuse. Use it…. said gently to self.

Revel.

Revelation.

Retreat.

Reveal.

http://myfavouritefeed.blogspot.com.au

People ask me all the time: why did you become a sex worker?

My answer is very unoriginal, money of course! Why else does anyone accept an offer of a job? Of course it was not a conventional job but I had been hanging out with a friend who was a sex worker, so I had been exposed to the pros (pardon the pun) and cons of working in the sex industry including seeing the copious amounts of cold hard cash that she was making at that time and it was all very, very tempting.

Being around my sex worker friend made me think about a lot of questions which consumed most of my quiet time. Questions were constantly floating around inside my head and trying to answer them within myself and my moral code. I really seriously started to think about it.

The biggest internal personal quandary was – could I fuck a stranger and get paid for it? Was it right to have sex for money? What would my family and friends think? What about diseases, how did you not catch diseases? Would that mean I am a slut or just smart because I wouldn’t be going out and give it away for free at nite clubs? I was single – why shouldn’t I do it? Who says I can’t? I had so many thoughts and questions flowing through my head.

I mean I had no reason to not give it a go except my own personal inner turmoil of what was right and wrong. But who said it was wrong? But was it right? Society sets standards for us and like sheep we follow those standards without questioning them. They say sex for money is bad, it’s wrong, but why? Don’t we get final say over our body? One act, sex for money opens the door to a thousand questions.

What about my family and friends, how would they react if I went ahead and did this? My parents were older parents; I was a late in life child. I have no idea what their thoughts on sex work were. I think one of my sisters would be ok, the others maybe not and my brother, well who knows with him. We were all so far apart age wise that I really didn’t relate well to my older siblings so I wasn’t really worried about their opinions were only my one sister Karen with whom I was the closest to.

One night in 1996, the offer came to step into this unusual world, I accepted it hesitantly but with my idealistic view that I should try everything at least once in life and if I didn’t like it, well I wouldn’t do it again. Obviously it worked out well for me. Here I am almost 20 years later loving this life I have created for myself through hard work, being reliable, looking after myself and most importantly – looking after my clients!

Being a sex worker has been the most rewarding job that I have ever done, yes really it has been. There are many varying reasons why a person chooses to do sex work as a job. I can tell you that having sex or a love of sex is one of the least reasons for choosing this occupation. Many choose this work for the freedom of time and flexibility it provides. Depending on what a person’s financial goals are: you can work as little or as much you want and when you want to.

It has also opened up doors to world travel and working in foreign countries. It afforded me the time to do whatever I needed or wanted to do when I needed or wanted to do it. Full flexibility, how many jobs can offer me this?

But these are the things that are most tempting about sex work; answering to no one but myself. Working when I feel like working. Seeing clients that I only want to see. Touring around Australia, working in other states and seeing our beautiful country all the while making money. Meeting interesting people wherever I go!

Every day is a new experience for me. I meet new people every single day I work and I learn from them and they feed my soul and my thirst for knowledge about life. I have learned a lot about the world and its different cultures.

I have learned about other people’s life experiences. I’ve learned a lot about other people’s jobs. I have learned a lot about other people’s relationships and marriages.

People have invited me inside their lives and I have absorbed all this information – I have collected and collated it in my mind. I have assessed it all and have learned what is best for my life by the errors or victories that other people have discussed with me during our private time together. We are always learning, life is about learning and I’ve learned a lot! The downside of sex work though is people telling me what is right and wrong. They tell me how I should be living my life. They pass judgement on me without even knowing me. They reduce me down as a human being to what I do for work instead of who I am as a person. Stigma and discrimination is a major problem. These people attempt to brow beat me to give in to their way of thinking. Free thinking is not allowed in their perfect world and sex workers are despicable human beings who must conform to their ways or be forever judged and forever trolled on the internet by them.

What people forget is that sex workers weren’t always sex workers, at least I wasn’t. I didn’t grow up thinking or planning that I was going to be a sex worker, I grew up as other people do. I wanted to be many things. I wanted to be a ballerina – a teacher – a poet – a writer & probably a dozen other things I’ve forgotten about. What I’ve actually worked as is a shop assistant, in food & beverage, nail technician, bakery assistant, tax consultant, apprentice hairdresser, promotional model, hair & beauty salon owner and finally sex worker & brothel manager.

But sex work isn’t real work! Says who? You? Who are you to say that? Have you tried working as a sex worker? Sex work is like any other job, no correction, it’s a business like any other business. An ABN is mandatory as is GST if income goes over a certain threshold.

I hate it when people preach to me about how sex work isn’t a real job. It is a lawful occupation in Australia. It’s also a highly sustainable job through all the ups and downs of this world’s shitty economy. Sex work is an extremely stable source of income. In the last 20 years, even during the quietest of times and the global financial crisis, sex work still made more than enough money to survive on, paying a mortgage, the bills and for life’s little luxuries.

My husband who has “a real job” in a mechanical trade has been through half a dozen jobs in the time I have held one job. The employment market has been very unstable and long term employment seems to be a thing of the past. So having “a real job” is not an awesomely appealing prospect for me after watching hubby struggle to find and keep a job as well as several family members who have been in long term unemployment.

So what is sex work really about? It’s like any other labour intensive services. Skills and time are purchased by customers, that’s it, that’s what sex work is all about. My clients don’t “buy my body” – as many like to believe. I don’t sell my body, I sell my time and my skilled services. Away from the physical aspect of sex work, I run a business with all the bullshit that comes along with that. Administration duties are performed in between bookings, marketing plans are made and executed and time spent on social media because having a presence and networking on social media is a must for any business in this era.

When it comes down to the nitty gritty of sex work, people assume that I must be a nymphomaniac slut to be a sex worker and that I have orgies at my house every weekend either that or fuck off to the nearest nite club to snort cocaine and fuck any warm body available to me. So very far from the truth. My idea of a great Friday night is watching Netflix in bed – by myself. My Saturday night? Chinese food and a movie with hubby. Sex with strangers is far from my mind on my private time off work. I’m strictly a Monday to Friday whore.

Come on, it’s 2015 not the 1980’s, things have changed dramatically except for people’s perceptions and prejudices. Wake up and stop being an asshole about sex work. We live in a modern age where we have had so many advances and have accepted so many things that were taboo in the days of yore: interracial couples, homosexuality, legalisation of marijuana in some countries but many minds still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to sex work.

Yet books and films such as Fifty Shades of Grey gets a womans loins aflutter and Sex in the City made you desperately wish you could be a Samantha. Television, movies and books have helped women open up sexually, to remove inhibitions so long held on to because society has said they were bad or naughty or wrong. There is nothing wrong with being open sexually and expressing yourself this way.

When it comes to my clients; I love to see people happy. To help a person free themselves of their sexual inhibitions is a joy to me. To see them leave me with a confidence boost is a shot to my ego. To know that I have made someone’s day makes me very happy indeed.

For me, not only is sex my work but sex is also my art and I’m a fantastic artist!

The sex industry caters to all walks of life – male and female – working class to world leaders. It’s not an industry that will be stopped no matter how hard people who are against it try to – it is much larger than they are. The sex industry has been and will be around for time immemorial.