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agonyaunt2022-07-08 10:48 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-07-08 10:48 am
Entry tags:
How to Do it: My Brother and His Wife Think I Should Use My Virginity to Pay Off My Student Loans
contents include coercion, sex work, misuse of sociopolitics, and a LW I wish I could bail out.
I can’t shake my feelings of reluctance.
I graduated from college in 2019 but have had no luck finding a job in my field. My high-functioning autism makes food service and retail work impossible for me, so I’ve been applying for various administrative jobs (I’ve had numerous interviews, but haven’t been hired), as well as jobs like hotel night clerk, security guard, kennel worker, and cleaner/janitor (I haven’t even gotten any interviews for those). Since the pandemic hit I’ve been living with my older brother, his wife, and their girlfriend “Sage.” My conservative parents are not happy about this, and have cut me off financially. Even doing all the freelance writing and editing I can get, I don’t quite cover my expenses, so my brother has to help me out. He’s extremely generous but he and his wife are not rich, and have let me know this can’t go on forever.
Sage, with whom I share the apartment in their basement, is a sex worker who makes about half her income online and half doing outcalls for a small list of clients. She makes good money, has never been in trouble with the law, and seems happy with her career. I’ve watched her work several times from off-camera, and have been OK with it, so she’s offered to help me get set up and give me all the mentoring I need. She thinks my virginity alone could pay off my student loans and launch me on a successful career. (Although she wants to list me as being 19 or 20 instead of 24, which makes me anxious about being found out.)
I’ve given it a lot of thought, but haven’t quite been able to get over my misgivings. I’m an extremely private person, and hate the thought of sexy images and videos of me being potentially out there on the internet forever, or having to touch, make eye contact with, and have sex with a man I’m only pretending to find attractive.
My brother and sister-in-law have hinted that as a progressive feminist I’m being hypocritical for not wanting to do this, and spoiled and selfish for continuing to live off them instead. I still can’t shake my feelings of reluctance, but don’t even know if I have a right to feel this way. If, for example, after searching this long, I was offered a job cleaning public toilets, no matter how much I “hated the thought of it,” I’d be a spoiled brat to turn my nose up at it, right? So how is this any different?
—Why Can’t I Just Clean Toilets?
Dear Why Can’t I,
Entering sex work is different from taking a gig cleaning toilets. Sure, people might look down on you for being a janitor, but they aren’t likely to fire you from a job for having previously done that work. As up close and personal with smells and humanity as toilet cleaning is, it still isn’t as intimate as sexual labor, especially sexual labor that involves taking parts of another person into your own body.
I spoke with Reese Piper, an autistic woman living in Brooklyn who works as a stripper and writer, about sensory processing and sex work. She mentioned how eye contact, for one, can be complex and manageable.
When I’m chatting to customers on the floor of the strip club, especially when it’s loud and crowded, I find it arduous to talk face-to-face because eye contact can make it harder for me to process language. That is, when I look people in the eye I struggle to understand what they’re saying. Simple strategies such as looking at the space between the customers’ eyebrows or staring at their noses can help, but I find chatting side-by-side to be the most beneficial to my income and well-being. When I’m approaching a customer to chat before suggesting a lap dance, I always recommend we sit next to each other at the bar or on a couch or on their lap so I’m not face-to-face. Lots of autistic people prefer to socialize ‘peripherally’—they find it more comfortable and less distracting than talking to someone head-on. Similarly, during more intimate moments with customers, I’ll whisper in their ear or bury my face in their neck, which again allows me to connect without making direct eye contact.
So, there are ways to navigate your needs while catering to customers.
Privacy, as you mention, is another concern. Once sexual images of you are on the internet, they’re there forever. Cory Doctorow described the internet as a “copying machine” in his 2011 book Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, and that remains true. One uploaded copy becomes several online copies, each of which can be reuploaded. There’s no taking it back, and these images have a way of resurfacing at the worst possible time. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of explaining your sexual images to a boss 10 years from now, please, listen to your gut and say no to this offer.
If your brother and his wife are putting pressure on you to engage in sex work, that’s coercion, and coercion isn’t OK. Sex-positive feminism sometimes twists and becomes an imperative call to engage in all the sex, including sex we don’t want to have. This can extend to sexual performance and sexual labor. Listen to your own boundaries and respect them. You’re the person who has to live with the ramifications of your choices.
In the event you decide you would like to begin working with sexuality, Reese has some advice.
There isn’t a lot of information readily available about the industry on the internet, so it’s imperative that you have a community of people you can rely on. Friends will give you the down-low, they’ll teach you about the unspoken rules of the industry that you may struggle to grasp. They’ll teach you how to make money and may help you find customers when you’re financially struggling. And hopefully, friends will have your back if anything bad comes your way. That being said, don’t immediately put your trust in one person. Let friendships build over time and focus on building multiple relationships, not just one.
You would need more than Sage as a mentor. And, in case you need this to show to your brother: Feminism is about freedom of choice. That includes the choice to hold out for a job scrubbing bathrooms in the park. That includes the choice to decline sexual labor, or sexual interaction at all.
I can’t shake my feelings of reluctance.
I graduated from college in 2019 but have had no luck finding a job in my field. My high-functioning autism makes food service and retail work impossible for me, so I’ve been applying for various administrative jobs (I’ve had numerous interviews, but haven’t been hired), as well as jobs like hotel night clerk, security guard, kennel worker, and cleaner/janitor (I haven’t even gotten any interviews for those). Since the pandemic hit I’ve been living with my older brother, his wife, and their girlfriend “Sage.” My conservative parents are not happy about this, and have cut me off financially. Even doing all the freelance writing and editing I can get, I don’t quite cover my expenses, so my brother has to help me out. He’s extremely generous but he and his wife are not rich, and have let me know this can’t go on forever.
Sage, with whom I share the apartment in their basement, is a sex worker who makes about half her income online and half doing outcalls for a small list of clients. She makes good money, has never been in trouble with the law, and seems happy with her career. I’ve watched her work several times from off-camera, and have been OK with it, so she’s offered to help me get set up and give me all the mentoring I need. She thinks my virginity alone could pay off my student loans and launch me on a successful career. (Although she wants to list me as being 19 or 20 instead of 24, which makes me anxious about being found out.)
I’ve given it a lot of thought, but haven’t quite been able to get over my misgivings. I’m an extremely private person, and hate the thought of sexy images and videos of me being potentially out there on the internet forever, or having to touch, make eye contact with, and have sex with a man I’m only pretending to find attractive.
My brother and sister-in-law have hinted that as a progressive feminist I’m being hypocritical for not wanting to do this, and spoiled and selfish for continuing to live off them instead. I still can’t shake my feelings of reluctance, but don’t even know if I have a right to feel this way. If, for example, after searching this long, I was offered a job cleaning public toilets, no matter how much I “hated the thought of it,” I’d be a spoiled brat to turn my nose up at it, right? So how is this any different?
—Why Can’t I Just Clean Toilets?
Dear Why Can’t I,
Entering sex work is different from taking a gig cleaning toilets. Sure, people might look down on you for being a janitor, but they aren’t likely to fire you from a job for having previously done that work. As up close and personal with smells and humanity as toilet cleaning is, it still isn’t as intimate as sexual labor, especially sexual labor that involves taking parts of another person into your own body.
I spoke with Reese Piper, an autistic woman living in Brooklyn who works as a stripper and writer, about sensory processing and sex work. She mentioned how eye contact, for one, can be complex and manageable.
When I’m chatting to customers on the floor of the strip club, especially when it’s loud and crowded, I find it arduous to talk face-to-face because eye contact can make it harder for me to process language. That is, when I look people in the eye I struggle to understand what they’re saying. Simple strategies such as looking at the space between the customers’ eyebrows or staring at their noses can help, but I find chatting side-by-side to be the most beneficial to my income and well-being. When I’m approaching a customer to chat before suggesting a lap dance, I always recommend we sit next to each other at the bar or on a couch or on their lap so I’m not face-to-face. Lots of autistic people prefer to socialize ‘peripherally’—they find it more comfortable and less distracting than talking to someone head-on. Similarly, during more intimate moments with customers, I’ll whisper in their ear or bury my face in their neck, which again allows me to connect without making direct eye contact.
So, there are ways to navigate your needs while catering to customers.
Privacy, as you mention, is another concern. Once sexual images of you are on the internet, they’re there forever. Cory Doctorow described the internet as a “copying machine” in his 2011 book Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, and that remains true. One uploaded copy becomes several online copies, each of which can be reuploaded. There’s no taking it back, and these images have a way of resurfacing at the worst possible time. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea of explaining your sexual images to a boss 10 years from now, please, listen to your gut and say no to this offer.
If your brother and his wife are putting pressure on you to engage in sex work, that’s coercion, and coercion isn’t OK. Sex-positive feminism sometimes twists and becomes an imperative call to engage in all the sex, including sex we don’t want to have. This can extend to sexual performance and sexual labor. Listen to your own boundaries and respect them. You’re the person who has to live with the ramifications of your choices.
In the event you decide you would like to begin working with sexuality, Reese has some advice.
There isn’t a lot of information readily available about the industry on the internet, so it’s imperative that you have a community of people you can rely on. Friends will give you the down-low, they’ll teach you about the unspoken rules of the industry that you may struggle to grasp. They’ll teach you how to make money and may help you find customers when you’re financially struggling. And hopefully, friends will have your back if anything bad comes your way. That being said, don’t immediately put your trust in one person. Let friendships build over time and focus on building multiple relationships, not just one.
You would need more than Sage as a mentor. And, in case you need this to show to your brother: Feminism is about freedom of choice. That includes the choice to hold out for a job scrubbing bathrooms in the park. That includes the choice to decline sexual labor, or sexual interaction at all.