Fucking. Freelance. Failure. (Part 1)

Every morning, when I open my eyes, I ask myself one question: Today, in this moment, how will I define my place in this world?

It may sound a little fluffy, but this is the question that gets me from point A to point B on any given day. I ask myself this question every time I get out of bed, because the answer is fluid; it changes from day to day. More often than I’d like to admit, the answer depresses me. For example:

Today, I am a noncontributing member of society; no real job, no reliable income, no real foothold in any of my creative projects.

When this happens (after a bit of moping), I try to make minor adjustments throughout the day. I strive to reach an answer that makes me feel comfortable about my place in the world; an answer that makes me look forward to asking myself this question every single day.

Last week, as I dragged myself out of bed, I realized that my answer had begun to stray farther from what I feel comfortable with at this point in my life. My phone had been ringing off the hook for days; from 9am to 12am, I was fielding calls from men demanding my body and my time. They wanted to know what they’d get for their money. They wanted to know if I'd be worth it. Would I donate my underwear? For an extra $50, would I be willing to add sucking or fucking to my show?

These were easy, stupid questions for what should have been an easy job. Thus is the nature of customer service; you get paid to deliver a service, deliver a product, answer stupid questions. I’d be making a disproportionate amount of money compared to the amount of *actual* labor I'd be doing...so why complain?

I'll tell you why.

Because I'm tired of getting tangled up in longterm "relationships" with men who think that they can buy my love; men who *attempt* to make very clear moral distinctions between college students in need of a handout, sugar babies, call girls. Because frankly, I'm too lazy to maintain a perfectly well-groomed bikini line and I look like a clown in lipstick. Because I can happily fuck on camera or over the phone, but it scares the living shit out of me when I'm placed in a room with nothing but a chinsy pair of stilettos and a man I've never met before.

I've gone shoe shopping, shared more than a few decent Pinot Noirs, ass-fucked an architect in exchange for a semester's worth of books, masturbated for a college professor, and fantasized about someone younger and slimmer while a middle-aged man buried his face between my legs and called me his "good little girl."

While I haven't been emboldened by every experience, these encounters have not left me bitter or broken. It isn't usually the paying customer who angers me, but the "good-intentioned" outside observer. Take, for example, a conversation shared with a male roommate.

Continued in Part 2.