Cara's stories were some of my favorite. She provided a depth to our conversation that continues to bring forth and spur both challenging and complex conversations. First thing's first, Cara defies a lot of expectations as to what a legal sex worker should be. She has been in the industry on and off for over 5 years. She is a graduate student with dreams and plans of getting her PhD. Cara is an articulate and clever industry spokesperson with a passion for the destigmatization of the work.
We talked a lot about the difficulty of balancing her multiple identities.
I'm both a sex worker and a master's student. I feel both and at different times I feel more inspired by the other. For the first year of my grad program I wasn't working in a brothel and I had to come back because I can't just be doing one thing. I'm a perfectionist so I will go overboard with that one thing and I will drive myself crazy. Like my first year of grad school was hell because I couldn't lay off myself. I had no other passions to divert my attention or to really focus on. I had a panic attack at the end of my first semester when I submitted my first paper. I should have felt so much relief but I had a panic attack on my living room floor after I submitted it because I felt like it wasn't good enough. I have to have multiple things going on to distract me from other things so I don't get too far into them. Each of them are an escape from the other.
There are so many things about this story that resonate with me. The inability to give myself permission to relax, the need for an escape... all of it.
Beyond that, as our conversation went on, she explained why the brothel house is such a satisfying place of freedom for her.
This is a different world. It is the most freeing place that I've ever experienced... I don't know if I can put it in words. I love it. Don't get me wrong, there's bad days or days that I am just so sick of this place and I can't be here for another second. To me it represents complete freedom. It's the most nonjudgmental space you could ever be in. Anything goes. Nothing's weird. Nothing's crazy. I've heard it all. I've seen most of it. I meet so many different people. It's a crazy place. I like things that aren't normal. This really is a dream for the curious minded.
I've said this before, I'm not sure what I expected from brothel culture but I don't think acceptance was it. I don't think freedom was it. I expected it to be numbing. To just be a place to hide from all that was real and hard and imperfect. It is that for so many, customers specifically, but I expected the women to be hiding too. Very few women seemed to be fearful and numb from shame. I felt relief when Cara said this. I felt relieved that there was some sign of life within. Some desire to search for fullness too.
All in all, Cara brought invaluable insight into what this world is like. More stories of hers to come.
***all names are pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality and anonymity of the women.
Comments