sayonara sale

There is a TV show in Japan called “はじめておつかい” where toddlers are sent on errands like “buy cake” or “buy a fish for dinner” or “get your nails and hair done” at the Beauty Parlor in their neighborhoods ALONE (or seemingly alone, of course,there is a crew of 10 or so staff watching for the welfare at all times off camera).

 It’s actually really adorable and hilarious, and one of my favorite Japanese shows. It usually has a classic scene of them dropping a fish in the street and bursting into frustrated tears of anguish and desire to give the fuck up. I OFTEN feel like that 3 or 4 year old on this impossible mission when I have to do these seemingly impossible, logistical, legal adulting tasks in Japanese that is way too hard for me.  Trying to negotiate the ending of a lease in Japanese on their terms armed with my intermediate knowledge of the written and spoken word is difficult to say the least. Leaving the property manager fully flustered in the same exact way I was when I first moved in the place, except when I moved in two years ago, my Japanese was much worse. Today, for the first time in my adult life of paying bills, my electricity turned off because I didn’t pay the bill.  And this is the weekend that I am packing and moving, its the dead middle of Tokyo winter, 35 degrees outside and the heater won’t work because it runs on electricity. Nor is there hot water, refrigeration or a stove. Nice work Mariko. Last month, you were spending money like you would should and could always have that much in your account (manifest it! Believe it! LIve it!), traveling and seeing family, friends, and making amazing art and rejuvenating your long lost soul purpose as an artist, for once not letting money be the fucking barrier that it usually is.  How dare you. The highlight of the night, if not the week was eating cannabis and deciding to destress in one of the best thing Japanese cities and towns have going: the bathhouse. Especially the one a few train stops down from me is really a luxurious treat that I forget to indulge in because it is a few stops and a not so short bike ride from my house. The tubs at this bathhouse have one that is outdoors with frosted high fencing right near the train tracks so it feels like the train flies right passed you bathing but it’s a good 25 meters away from you. I stepped on the scale and I’m exactly the same weight as I’ve been for the entire too chubby for Japan year even though my clinic doctor whom I am obligated to chat with every month because I need chronic asthma medication.  “You’re gaining weight, i see you all the time, so i can tell.” he said. “Do you exercise?” ugh. This guy. The same doctor who told me that I might get AIDS from getting my tattoos in the next breath recommended me for English lessons to his wife, and she actually booked a lesson that same night, so i can’t be too mad. I know he means well, he’s in his sixties or seventies and i’m sure means well, so i don’t fault him for it. I’ve developed an ability for not taking what Japanese people say about me too seriously. I’m on the verge of another big change here. Moving out of the solo apartment adventure that I got being the Tantra coach to a very strange and difficult client who miraculously gave me more money than any client had given me in many years. It was one of many many miracles that occured for me as I began my journey in Japan.  It was a great set up to a very difficult cultural acclamation. It wasn’t just that I was a not fully fluent foreign born Japanese immigrant, but Backpage fully closed with the owner going to prison and clientele fell like the sky according to Henny Penny so I had to work full time in a regular job for the first time also in many many years.  Luckily, like last month, there were a few more well paid seekers over the years.

Addicted to Poverty

Things are definitely better this week.  I paid my rent and I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is going to come from.  My addiction to poverty had reached an all time low last week. I received my usual second paycheck direct deposit from the company that usually gives me enough teaching work to pay my rent submitted an amount that was a pitiful half of what was required to pay my rent for the due date that week.  I was out of positive affirmations and miracles. I was out of ideas. I was going to interviews at least once a week in a Japanese business suit with my best foot forward and excelling in two languages, using previous work experience to answer expert questions and yet, somehow only had 200 yen to buy a canned convenience store cocktail to celebrate after exerting all that pressure and energy to succeed in the real world.  I’d been here before in Los Angeles. Wifi had been cut off and I was placing escort ads and writing and trying to do art work at Denny’s, collecting EBT, seeing clients I was not proud to see and wishing that I could just die somehow trying to live. Almost a decade later, working as a teacher/writer/lecturer in Tokyo my outlook was not so grim but yet, I was in such a similar position financially somehow. I couldn’t understand if I had progressed or somehow just made a big 12 year circle.  I couldn’t ask my mom for money, she had already given me money when I first came back to Japan. I had already endured the shame of having one’s rent paid by their mother at the age of 41. The next lower step was to ask the sister who had money who, no matter what I ever did in life, since we were kids despised me and wished I was never born. “Hey, uh, I don’t know who else to ask, but, do you think you could spare $1000? I know that mailing my mail to Japan is enough strain on you already and you complain that I have to use your address to receive a little mail but maybe if you had some cash to pay my rent that might, uh, make our lifetime of strained and dysfunctional relating better right?”  Or maybe I’d have to ask both sisters to split my bill. They’d really love that one as I’m always portrayed as the loser with her hand out, as if asking my retired mother wasn’t enough last year. I was walking around like a zombie but still needing to teach my classes and students that day, trying to figure out what my next move was. A friend from the hafu Japanese club on Facebook, whom I’d never met offered to buy me a carafe of wine in the middle of the day at a Denny’s like diner equivalent in Japan. It was a wonderful gesture and it helped to bring a smile to my face because despite the fact that my income didn’t match my potential or my efforts, I really did feel like everything was just fine.  I had just been able to be so busy that it felt hectic like a bee, speed walking through Tokyo and eating on the train to get to the next student and then suddenly, I lost 3 twice weekly students with no immediate replacement. My attempt to make money in Australia, FAILED. My Tantra business was not proving to be immediately fruitful and since Australia, I was already opening myself to sex work again except that even THAT wasn’t working. It didn’t work in Australia, hostess bars in Japan were telling me I was too old or impossible and people just weren’t giving me the time of day. I was drinking a lot of wine but it wasn’t really helping. Wine is not weed after all and weed is something I need to get through dilemmas like this.  I discovered I wasn’t really addicted to marijuana, but what I seemed to be addicted to was poverty. “Come back to LA.” a Facebook friend said, “we miss you here.” I told her,”It doesn’t matter where I am or what I am wearing, poverty follows me like a shadow.” It’s something I need to excavate within it seems or it will be part of me forever.

 

I DID ONE DESPERATE AND SAD VIDEO ON FACEBOOK LIVE THAT NIGHT.

 

And then…miraculously, similar to last year in the Philippines when I also had no money my friends came through with donations.  More than they did when I was visa jumping from Tokyo to Cebu to START my great Japan adventure. This was a two years after that time, so much and so little had changed.  One of my same friends came through with a good chunk just like last time to make sure I wasn’t homeless soon, but a lot of new people came through that had never donated before.  I was so grateful, humbled and touched. I made ONE video. Not even a formal crowd fundraiser at all. There were people that I had met in Japan and were friends with, some not even great friends with that contributed to my rent and living expenses fundraiser.  I made enough to get out of the red hot lava and swim to shore. The speed at which this all happened was phenomenal. “You got money.” emails from Paypal are always great, but especially in these times much much better. 

I don’t want to write about it much anymore because although I am grateful but, still ashamed. It’s terrible really and I’m glad that for the time being I can move on and I found that beyond this blog, I don’t really want to revisit it at all in my head or conversation.  

When Theft of Services Equals Rape and When Reframing is Better than Blaming and Going Aileen Wuornos on a Motherfucker

Amidst the #metoo incidents of Hollywood sexual violence I am working as a Love goddess in Seattle, doing my best to fundraise some lost income and property that got stolen out of a car in Los Angeles because I was negligent. It’s my third time to work as a Tantra practitioner in Seattle, every time I have come, it’s been a great, profitable and life changing experience. And again it did not fail me. I was fortunate enough to see more clients in two weeks than I had the opportunity to see in Japan all year since, in Japan, I don’t get to have the same type of business model as I used to when I worked in the U.S so it is always a great opportunity to brush up my skills and work on lots of new seekers bodies. I’ve been working as a professional goddess for over four years now, evolved and inclusive of the seventeen years of total work history in the field of sexuality. 7 of these years I was an escort and a self proclaimed whore revolutionary sex worker activist. In the seven years that I worked, fought, spoke for and rallied with fellow sex workers I became immersed in the ideology and framework of the movement and it became the passion that woke me up in the morning and fueled me through the sometimes grueling and dangerous profession that I called my job. I have since then been extremely happy to have moved beyond all of it without entirely closing the door to how it formed me as the LOVE WORKER that writes this blog now. I tell my seekers that call my phone that Tantra is not just a catchphrase i put in my ad, and i that love is not just a euphemism for fuck or happy ending, i actually genuinely, spiritually, fully engage in LOVE MAKING and sharing with clients which usually does not include intercourse or any of the standard acronyms of prostitution that many men on Backpage might be familiar with (GFE, BBBJ, etc).  And amazing people pay me great money for it as well.  But, because of my vast history, i’m aware of what they might be referring to and can lovingly redirect them to a referral who would better serve their needs.

In order to book an appointment, I require a small deposit to show me that the seeker is serious. This time, upon suggestion from another sex worker, i try to use G**gleWallet to accept my deposit. I usually require just $50 which goes towards the session and I didn’t think twice when the client wanted to send $250 instead of $50. I get an email from G**gle that says,”$250 is being deposited into your bank account.” which means to me as a business owner that I can feel safe to facilitate a paid session.

I saw him the next morning and collected the balance in cash and proceeded to create my 2 hour of magic and love. There was nothing suspicious or ingenuine about this client, we had a beautiful session, I tapped into his God energy and everything ended in a beautiful way.

Sometime in the next day, I am checking my bank balance and realizing that the money hasn’t hit and then I call the company to check and see if there is a delay for some reason. Ggle tells me that the sender can actually cancel the payment even after the email that they sent me has been sent. They tell me that this service is not a safe way to collect money from strangers off the internet and that it should only be used for friends and family (as if friends and family never rip people off).

7 years of being a vengeful, righteous whore revolutionary rose up from the fire of my root to the top of my consciousness and i remembered all the times as a sex worker that i had been ripped off and shorted by escort clients. I was mostly surprised that i was being confronted with these feelings when the way that i had constructed my life, the decisions i made, the clients that i chose and who chose me, the work that i did, the vibration was supposed to be all different now. But, I had gotten ripped off in a similar way from a Tantra coaching client in May whom i had coached for several hours too long for no promised pay received. My live work roommate in Seattle had just talked to me about a time when she was working in New York City and a similar thing had happened and she had “felt raped’ and couldn’t work the rest of her tour because she just felt extremely depressed and violated. I had just read a blog by Lily Fury explaining why she had recently created a devastating fundraising fraud upon the sex worker community all in an attempt to get a bad client blacklisted for what she felt was rape and not theft of services. “he was a client who had shortchanged me (that is, had raped me) when I was desperate after just getting out of jail.” Sex workers and women in general have righteous anger and history about rape and sexual violence not being named for what it is and not being punished equally or justly, so it seems in retaliation to the systems that have failed and ignored them, many of them seem to have started using the words theft of services and rape interchangeably. Since leaving the sex worker rights movement about two years ago to focus on spiritual sexual self growth and other community frameworks, the thing that has stood out to me most, the thing that I was also guilty of was that self determined sex workers HATE being called victims, unless it is them doing the victim name calling on their own situations. (To be cont)

To Whore or Not to Whore Part 2

​Survival sex work doesn’t take thought in the same way that blocking a punch coming at your face is an instinctual move for most. Taking the time to assess whether you can meet your basic needs in other ways is comparable to the thought process of assessing why you even had to block a punch to the face in the first place.  This is the art part of martial arts. It is different from “self defense.” I was indeed a front line soldier for many years, so self defense was necessary but “it (to be in the war, to fight, to survive, to struggle)”, I learned, like everything was ALSO a choice. 

If you are doing survival sex work you are not in control of the working conditions or clients and it is often an act of desperation not empowerment.  The funny thing is when I called myself a “whore revolutionary,” I also referred to my work as a matter of survival NOT choice.  I empowered myself in my survival versus my choice, I likened myself to a suicide bomber in an occupation I inherited.  It was a slippery slope, and I predictably slipped to surrender to the greater elements constantly wearing me down, including mainly my own thinking around these issues, which I was not ready to admit until I was ready to submit.

Sex work is ONLY empowering when you WANT TO DO IT and you get to do it HOW and WHEN YOU WANT to do it.  

When I am working online looking for jobs and opportunities in Japan that I can do without a visa, I look for hours on craigslist.  Just like any metropolitan city craigslist there are ads for adult video models and escorts and various other things in the sex industry.  I shoot off emails with sexy photos to see what kind of entity i’m working with, whether or not they will actually respond and if they can tempt me further.  Every month living in Japan and paying rent is a challenge for me. I don’t go out and party much because of my limited income, i don’t get to go to a lot of basic social things in the center of the city like a Japanese or boxing class because traveling there requires $10 on the train and usually whatever cost of the event and a meal or two.  I imagine myself living under a bridge with the other homeless in Japan or trying to live in a shelter of some kind with all my huge piles of luggage and my guitar.  I wrack my brain trying to market all the different skills i have in the different sections of jobs offered. I am a freelance writer, i can teach English, i can teach Tantra to groups and individuals, i can do things in food service, I am great with children…Is it really time to pull out the goddess standards and make my money by any means necessary? I meditate on it.

One of my first Tantra clients in Tokyo paid my regular rate for a non intercourse, energy based session. I thought he would be a repeat client, we seemed to hit it off well. I kept in contact with him for a couple months while I travelled and upon returning back to Tokyo I asked him if he wanted another Tantra session. It seemed he wanted more than I was willing to offer as thegoddess.  He wanted an escort. After a long annoying conversation, he ended it with, “Give me a call if you ever decide you want to escort again. Ganbatte (good luck).”  Normally I would have instantly deleted his contact, but i kept it like it was an EMERGENCY CONTACT because I knew that maybe that day in Japan would come and I might have to call him up and give him the date I wasn’t willing to give that day. I had already been to his upscale high rise apartment and knew some of his story, so, it would be a safe person to escort with if that day ever did need to come.  

I had started a crowd fundraiser to pay rent but also entitled a VIBE RAISER so that I could RAISE THE VIBRATION of my potential, of my possibilities, to remind me of the work I was brought to do in Japan.  I sent off a quick message to him and he was less than friendly in his response. I reminded him of his escorting proposal some months ago. I was cold and detached and removed from my body. Totally opposite of thegoddess in the VIBERAISER video singing and asking a crowd of followers to help support her mission.

“Is that offer still on the table?” I messaged.

We proceeded to engage in a long detailed negotiation about what I would and wouldn’t do for how much.  These kinds of conversations I hadn’t had in years as a goddess but that I was relegating myself to for SURVIVAL. I was swallowing my pride and willing myself to take it because it wasn’t going to be so bad and all these other reasons.  He seemed surprised that I even had a right to any boundaries or respect, though I had taught him how to honor me as a goddess before, he seemed to forget it all. He even asked “So why have you decided to call me now?” These types of emotionally triggering questions, that in my past I would answer with frank fearlessness. But I knew better than to bite the hand before it fed me.  “So, you need support?” he asked. “I need a client.” I answered stoicly, trying hard to bite my tongue and stay in the safety zone. “Isn’t that the same thing?” “NO.” I said without elaboration.  My coldness of heart made even me shudder.  I knew it would be the same when I saw him, which would make me likely a terrible lover when and if the time came. i resented him so much and his line of questioning, his arrogance, his lack of Godliness. i resented that I was even asking, that I had to constrict my soul so much to have a basic negotiation conversation. I hadn’t felt like that in years.  I went lap swimming to change my energy and do some moving meditation. i asked the Universe,”Is this REALLY what I am supposed to be doing here? Is this the answer you are giving me now?” Swimming. Swimming. Meditating. Moving.

The next day said client texted after all of what I felt to be painful negotiation that my rate for escorting (seen as more than the session completed before for the same price) was too much. Ended with another Good Luck to you.

I rejoiced. DELETED his messages and number and proceeded to remove that plan from my consciousness. it was a valiant effort.  I was not sure HOW a solution would replace this, but I was 1000% sure that HE was not offering any part of it.

I did another VIBERAISER/FUNDRAISER video without alluding to any of that interaction. I was ready to trust in new solutions instead of relegate to ones that I had known before.

Later that evening, a friend who had actually “broken up” with me randomly messages thru Facebook. “Hey, Im starring in a music video tonite in Shibuya. We need an Asian woman to wear a G string and play a prostitute in a hotel room with a Yakuza gangster. It pays $275 (my fundraiser goal was $500) if you can get down here in a couple hours.”

YES. YES. YES. YES. Y.  E.  S!!!!!!

VIBERAISER SUCCESS. Intentions heard thru the world in loud, magnificent volumes.

YOU ARE NO LONGER MEANT TO BE A WHORE.

 But all your experiences in life will put you in the greatest position to capitalize where others dare not enter, because they could not even imagine where you’ve been.

THIS WAS the Real WHORE REVOLUTIONARY not ANY of that shit I was doing before.  I never again have to question if that day will come in Japan, because it already did and thegoddess levitated above it all. 

Donate to the Undocumented 💘 LOVEWORKER in TOKYO DREAM FUND!!

DONATE TO THE UNDOCUMENTED 💘 LOVEWORKER IN TOKYO DREAM FUND! CLICK HERE! 

Japanese Men-Stop Giving Me a Bad Impression part 2 (THE HIRO FACTOR)

I came to Tokyo with an open heart and an open mind.  But in the 3 months that I’ve been here Japanese men have given me some pretty bad impressions.

Im on okcupid and Tinder in Tokyo…i’m not interested in you if you have been in Japan for over a year (and there are MANY GAIJIN WHO ARE LIKE THIS) and can’t speak any Japanese. But I also can’t communicate fully with anyone who can’t speak any English at all because I only have a 50% literacy.  I can get through most any situation and simple conversation but dating requires depth of language which I dont have yet.  And then there’s the Japanese man (HIRO) factor that I seem to be dealing with which has colored my dating experience.  Overall it seems to me, the people I’m attracted to are not attracted to me and everyone else is humping my leg, seriously offending or just plain ignoring me.  And so I wait patiently because I’m never in NEED of too much anymore after spending almost all of the last year in CONSCIOUS ABSTINENCE…I’d rather have GREAT SEX or nothing at all.  On okc I spot someone who is Japanese and cute but also speaks English.  He has some “I seem like a nice fun friendly guy” pictures with dogs and nature in them. Im looking to learn Japanese culture and language through dating so I message him about his kickboxing photos. I have been wanting to punch and kick workout with someone for YEARS but you wouldn’t believe how many rejections I get trying to organize a park sparring workout.  It seems that no one wants to take it outside of the training center.  This was even the case in LA, so when I see his photos holding pads for someone I am quick to message and ask if we can get together and spar sometime. The first thing he asks me is “Are you a man or a lady? Sorry to be rude.”  This is the 2nd time a Japanese male has asked me that, the first was from my current house manager before meeting to show me the room, who is also an asshole but in a different way. I thought the name Mariko was a female indicator (ko is almost always for girls names) but apparently it isn’t for these guys. i am amused when men recognize the masculine in me because I think of that as a compliment because its not visible.  It means energy speaks. i identify as genderqueer sometimes to the right crowd because as a Tantra practitioner it’s common to answer:: I am both as it is believed we are, but beyond that, I do drag king at times and I acknowledge my repressed male side. I’m not transgender.  No desire to change anything. i am as I am and that is both male and female energy within a dominant femme form.  

His next messages QUICKLY progress to CAN WE HAVE TANTRIC SEX? Are you a sex expert? What position are we going to FUCK IN? And this is in response to my totally non sexual casual messages about kickboxing and coming to Japan and other non sexual friendly things that you commonly ask on internet dating messages..

I respond to his questions about Tantra with the standard authentic goddess responses…eloquence and science about the energy exchange and what I do and how I teach it.  But HIRO, (ill call them all HIRO from now on, as a mockery of the English word HERO) is UNABLE TO digest my answers and keeps responding with his vulgarities.

.. After the last message that asked what position we were going to FUCK IN, i responded with “Charming Approach.  Hope that works for you. Good Luck.” and then he responds. “Well, I’m just keeping it real.” And then I shake my head and say,”Yes you are. Our realities are different.” I’d stopped trying to speak Japanese as soon as things turned disgusting because I can only express my boundaries and true feelings well in English.  Soon, ill be able to tell a HIRO off and lash him with 2 tongues of a samurai warrior but for now, only English. 

EVAPORATE like clouds over Mt.Fuji

Rising up from za water eburi 15 minetsu！

 My family reunion has completed to my relief and I am now able to eat healthy vegetarian foods and travel Japan on my own agenda once again. My mom who seems to live to antagonize me is off on her own to visit her hometown where she has promised to get her family record showing my Japanese lineage which is required to apply for a Nikkei Heritage visa.  This is an amazing program that allows people of up to 3rd generation Japanese ancestry to stay and work in Japan with the same rights as any other Japanese citizen. An employment sponsor is not even needed to apply for this visa in contrast to other Japanese visas and if I had my own family they also would be able to move here for up to 3 years!  While the Nikkei Heritage Visa program is packaged to look like a way for people to regain knowledge of their culture and language, the true intention of the Japanese government in creating the program was to get cheaper labor from Peru and Brazil where there are many 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese children of immigrants.

The existence of this is yet another miracle that has landed in my path for me after arriving in Japan (this info discovered via meeting the right local people who have been super helpful and encouraging).  

one of these girls is not a legal Japanese citizen….YET

I had planned to try to work illegally as a tourist as people often have to do to stay in the U.S. and other countries but it didn’t take much applying to some jobs and reading some wanted ads that i saw that I was up against a big obstacle not having the correct visa to work in Japan.  I had somewhat of a lead to work as a hostess in an empty and tiny karaoke bar in Roppongi Tokyo but I knew that that was never going to support my survival as every time the owner called me in to meet or work it would have no customers and 3 bored ladies sitting at the bar. A familiar scene from my stripclub working days.  I have evolved past having to do jobs that disintegrate my brain cells staring at a wall for an employer’s sake but I knew I was an undocumented worker and wasn’t in a position to be too picky.  Reverting back to a mind numbing sex work job was not something I wanted to do ever again, illegal citizen or not.  I had successfully done two Tantra sessions with two different clients in Tokyo already so I knew that there were other better options for me.The U.S greatly prospers off of the backs of the labor of undocumented citizens so it seems to be somewhat easier to jump through loopholes and get paid in cash to make your income in the states.  Even surviving off of an illegal sole proprietorship like selling CDs or food out of a shopping cart is an option that many undocumented folks have used to not only survive but prosper in the U.S. Illegal food vending is never done in Japan. Even buskers don’t get tipped in hats but can only sell CDs instead because no one gets tipped in Japan!  In my worst fears of moving to Japan, I imagined having to beg for change using my singing bowl like a monk.  Luckily, it’s not going to come to that for me but I really had no idea how I would survive here just that I had many skills, a couple college degrees, strong will and great hope for the best. Things have indeed manifested miraculously for me since I got here so naturally I am not worried at all about whether I will successfully attain my heritage visa.  It shall be done!

smelled like sweat and funk in the visitation room so by day2 i came prepared

NO WEED IN JAPAN

Before leaving for Japan, friends had told me that getting weed was near impossible and that if I did eventually find it, it would be $70 per gram, over 4 times the price I pay in the U.S.  This was the source of much anxiety as I was smoking more than ever in the stressful months leading to my move to Japan. I had been a daily user of cannabis for about 20 years prior to now. I left LA and flew to Seattle where it had been recreationally legal since about 2014. I continued my habit but knew that my days of access were numbered. I had a bit of a mental breakdown and walked into a dispensary in tears and incorrigible fear of my future move only to be relieved by Mary Jane as my usual medicine when I felt this way.  I had tried to cut back to prepare my mind at this time but there was so much anxiety in coming to Japan for me that i found it so hard to be stronger than my then current dependence.  If you look back in this blog, you can see that Mary Jane has been a way for me to sooth my PTSD, depression and anxiety for years but most times admittedly its been a recreational drug not really a medicine which is often debated by pro mj advocates.  I flew to Alaska and Vancouver Canada where it was also legal. It was in Vancouver that I was held for an hour in this passage thru to Tokyo because 3 years ago in 2013, I had been caught with a small pipe driving thru the border in which the Canadian government detained me for 4 hrs, read my journal out loud to me, examined parts of my FB and this blog and searched my car and person. I was searched and held for about 3 more hours on the U.S side, my little pipe confiscated and I was again traumatized by the treatment of state authorities for doing something minor and clearly harmless to others. So I know all about the detriments of marijuana dependence and it has indeed affected my life in punitive ways. I did make it to Tokyo this time on a rescheduled flight with no charge due to their reexamination of my 2013 case in 2016 which caused me to miss my flight to Tokyo. I wasnt even planning to visit Vancouver but ironically because there were no more flights to Japan I was able to see Vancouver for the first time since I was not admitted trying to visit before. I made sure to visit a legal dispensary there and get enough edibles to knock me out on my upcoming flight.  I also snuck in a few (10?) odorless candies hidden in some real sweet smelling candies because my dependence told me despite all that I had been thru with Canadian immigration I probably wasn’t strong enough to be sober in Japan yet.  I was willing to risk it because it was such a personal amount.  Therefore, I have even identified as an addict because I have never been able to not use for longer than 2 months in 20 years and my repeated risk taking for the substance is a classic definition of an addict straight from any drug addiction pamphlet you can find.

The US bombed the original castles and destroyed the Japanese economy by making the hemp crop used to make rope and parachute cords illegal and couching it into an anti drug campaign that Japanese believe is justified to this day

Today Japan has some of the strictest anti-cannabis laws in the world.  Punishment for possession is a maximum 5 years behind bars and illicit growers face 7-year sentences. Annually around 2000 people fall foul of these laws – their names splashed on the nightly news and their careers ruined forever. The same prohibition that dishes out these punishments also bans research into medical marijuana, forcing Japanese scientists overseas to conduct their studies.” 

It was actually the US that made cannabis illegal in Japan creating the Cannabis Control Act in 1948 in an attempt to further handicap the Japanese economy and military because it was in abundant use, widely grown to make sturdy rope and parchute cords for the military. I saw full　of the workers who built the samurai castles in Japan and they were wearing probably hemp rope sandals and possibly using hemp rope to build the amazing castles in Japan destroyed by bombs of the US during WWII.

Our initial 20 minute visit was pretty bleak. V had been scared to think by the prosecutor that she was going to go to Japanese prison for a long long time.  It was an emotional visit so I felt an urgent need to put out a youtube video to try fo get some US politicians who would advocate for V, a CA medical marijuana patient and US citizen so she wouldn’t have to go to Japanese prison! There had to be something we could do to help, wasn’t serving 2 months punishment enough for the Japanese government, not to mention holding detainees is an expense to any government! Her friend Lady Y and I didn’t think the Japanese government would waste their money on someone who had personal cannabis not intent to sell but then I thought of Guantamo Bay and how our government has held prisoners there for almost a decade without a trial. So the worst is always possible as well as the best.

The next day she had spoken to a more upbeat prosecutor who talked about deporting her, letting her make phone calls, use her laptop and even smoke a cigarette in his car! This was a 360 change from the day before. We also drove to speak to her lawyer and he had said he thinks she will 99% be deported.

Since arriving in Japan, things have been anundant for me friendship and career wise. Ive landed some Tantra clients, made lots of friends, realized my dream of living and working in Japan, am doing better financially than I ever have in my life before because I got an overseas freelance writing gig, so somehow the need to medicate disappeared. Fears and anxiety evaporated like clouds over Mt. Fuji. I was even able to endure a family reunion without numbing myself because any of their opinions would also evaporate like clouds over Mt.Fuji and seem so minor to all the miracles Id already manifested here. I was no longer addicted and I had broken thru the fear and economic glass ceiling and opinions and judgments of my bio family that had held me down for so long in the U.S. Helping advocate for Victoria whom Id never met off of Facebook seemed like my karmic duty as a fellow sex worker and stoner. I knew that it could have easily been me in Japanese jail for something like that so any time and expense required to work on this was given easily for a fellow comrade.。。。Rising up from za water eburi 15 minetsu！

What Goes Around Comes Around

In the last month or more since I wrote my last blog, I am finally blessed with a come up of my previous luck of the summer.  I don’t love the work like I used to as times are a changing, but at least I am not hating every single thing that I have to do for it and there are steadier calls and some better clientele who aren’t trying to fuck me over at every turn.  I know when it is down down down that the pendulum swings and it will soon come back up, but it had been a long summer of bad, economic recession and vultures flying low and clicking their teeth in anticipation of me slipping. I am still working on transition, but I am not naive to think that this is going to be a quick process.  I have made steps toward re-integrating myself into the working world, paid for my own criminal background check so that I could make sure that my misdemeanor charge was showing as dismissed as I had fought for.  The funny thing about expunging your record is that even though you may have gotten any of your previous charges dismissed, the person reading your background check still gets to read what the original charges were alongside the original sentences which are usually set extreme to scare you out of thinking you have any chance of getting off easy.  My original charges read  “7 days of jail, 18 months of probation, HIV test report and stay off Craigslist erotic services section.”  WOW.  Try applying for a teaching job with that even though the final lines say clearly “probation terminated on good behavior and case dismissed.”  Starting this process indeed made me teary eyed, but I feel similar to the process of representing myself pro per (as my own lawyer) in court and fighting for the dismissal would be an interesting exercise in seeing exactly how hard re-integration can be for someone like me who is supposed to have a wealth of so called choices.

I hate the word CHOICE.  Hate it. Fuck choices when it comes to work.  Choice is a continuum.  And for me, so is sexual assault.  I have been violated so many times I stopped counting because it would just be disturbing.  I have been violated so many times that I have accepted that I am a permanent warrior enlisted in the gender violence war.  And that is not my choice. But ‘Choice’ is the dominant paradigm that sits in opposition to FORCE.  forced sex work.  forced prostitution.  sex trafficking.  slavery.  Choice is also a word thrown around in the PRO-CHOICE movement.  This same pro-choice camp also so often fails to notice the lack of choices available to poor, marginalized women of color in regards to reproductive options and sex work is a part of that.   They are all for women being pro-choice with their bodies except when it comes to “choosing” to do sex work.  We sex worker rights folks are aware of the FALSE DICHOTOMY between force and choice.  But still sex workers talk about choosing sex work because it sounds good.  Connecting sexual abuse, drug use/addiction and sexual assault to prostitution sounds awful, pathological, typical.  How can we make these connections without these attributes?  Those sex workers may believe that they have the choice to do sex work just as simply as they choose to eat candy in the morning (or not) or fast food at night (or not).  Perhaps I feel like it is not a choice because so many times I have had to go to WORK and suck up my feelings time and time again and it was far from what I would have chosen to do with my time.  The nature of the SERVICE INDUSTRY particularly ones with BOSSES or SUPERIORS is that when you don’t want to do it, it will always feel like slavery.  This is true of housekeeping, childcare, farmwork, garment work, office work or anything that has a naturally submissive aspect to it in order to earn gratuity above minimum wage.  For me, it started when I was a stripper hating the repetetive monotony of my job.  I had just gone through my first major breakup of my 20s with a guy I was in love with and going to work to be chipper and sexually entertaining to the world and other men was the most difficult thing ever.  It was at this point when I started to medicate with marijuana on a daily basis in order to create a positive facade over the hatred I had for the job.  In the beginning of the healing I would dance on stage and go in the private rooms to cry.  13 years later I still medicate depression and anxiety with marijuana on the daily but now I don’t feel so bad about it.  Using weed is not just a result of being a sex worker, nor is my depression or anxiety but I definitely can be fond of eating a half of a pot cookie, smoking a bong (in the past, I vaporize now) or heating up a vaporizer to deal with anything in my life that I have to go out and do that takes strength.  This included going to grad school, student teaching and regular teaching.  Marijuana allows me to reach a level of seratonin balance that life doesn’t.  I have a deep and intimate relationship with MaryJane.  She is my mothers nipple to nurture my cries in an empty apartment at times when I am bawling hopelessly on the floor.  She is also just a way for me to push out the negative voices and replace them with positive affirmations about the big picture: the beautiful sunny Los Angeles day, the awesome music, the delicious food, the fact that I have many talents, that I am an intelligent analytical being, a writer, a singer, a funny joking child like spirit that deserves to live life to the fullest.  Maybe I choose weed over heroin, alcohol or speed or other substances that close down emotions and thought or maybe I am just choosing to live.  Is that a choice?  I don’t even know anymore.  I think so.  I mean, I know I have potential that is greater than being a junkie or commiting suicide or even relegating myself to a full time “normal” job.   The word has been used in so many negative connotations (mostly in my choosing to do sex work) that I don’t even use it anymore except as a necessary part of sentences.  Let’s just say I don’t use it fervently.  I don’t believe that work is a choice in America or anywhere in the world.

Mostly because I truly believe that I have been attracted to sex work and have stayed in sex work for as long as I have to unravel and discover my power struggle with sexism, rape culture and patriarchy that was NEVER my CHOICE.

My first sexual assault was a date rape on the beach at 17.  A naive teenager is getting drunk at a youth hostel with backpackers in the their 20s.  One of them asks me to go to the liquor store to get more drinks for the rest but instead I found myself laying in the dark at a secluded beach in Honolulu, Hawaii the sight of my first taste of what it meant to not understand the intentions of men.  As Tribe Called Quest would sing,”Classic example of..a date rape.” It wasn’t physically violent so [all my]  perpetrator[s] probably thought it was consensual.  I don’t remember who he was, only that he was some white surfer dude and that I knew exactly at the moment of penetration that this was not my choice.  There were many more after that.  The worst was from the first boy I ever fell in love with at 16, my best friends brother.  This assault would tear my best friend and I apart for many years and create a rift in our relationship that was only fully healed when at his funeral when he died (heart disease at only 26)  I had to face his brother again for the first time since the assault and be cordial. It worked out. We hugged and I was able to forgive him. David helped me from heaven or wherever he was. Then, another backpacking incident in Northern Australia, a vulture asks me to come to his room to get a massage and naive 21 year old adventurous me thinks that he has innocent and therapeutic intentions. NOT.  Because of that incident is the reason I attribute to why I feel I get so much out of the sensual massages that I give men.  Sensual and consensual they come so easily in my hands.  It is more than them ejaculating.  It is like the power blood gives vampires.  A refill of my power supply that had been depleted by trauma.  A refill of my power supply that had been depleted from the sexism of that day walking down the street before I came into my power or dealing with the privilege of men of that given time in my school, in my dating life, etc etc.  Melissa Farley and her clan love to hear stories like this.  It makes them hard, gets them funded, makes them look smart, makes them feel that I fit the stereotype.  The big difference is that I am empowered in the end.  More so than not.  Otherwise I would not be in it for as long as I have.

“Everytime a client comes an angel [hooker] gets her wings…”

Some sex workers are in denial of this connection.  I’m not.  I see it everywhere I turn.  I saw it especially when I was working with street workers in Skid Row.  So many of those girls find street work and prostitution satisfying because it is a gritty hustle.  Because their Uncle used to take for free continuously now they can not only not be around that abuse but get paid for the same desires that their pervy Uncle once had. And yes, it IS more empowering than being returned home or going back to a foster home at times.  I get it.  Do you?  I like craigslist/LA Weekly/Backpage clients for the same reason.  I attain high class clients occasionally through these outlets, but mostly I deal with working class, younger, drug using guys that I can yell at (if they act up) and never see again.  And they call me for the same reason and I DARE them to try to disrespect me.   Workers can be mean and strict with their tricks and get paid for it.  We prey on their shame of what they are doing.  We get paid for their racism.  PAYBACK in the short term, but in the long term perhaps more damaging.

NOT ALL MY CLIENTS ARE DICKHEADS THAT WANT TO RAPE ME.  Lots of them, most of them are great and fine, average guys that I heal myself and them simultaneously by surviving our transaction with ease and bliss.

In my acknowledgement that I am in the tail end of my sex work career, I acknowledge that I have attained enough of the positive and the negative to move on.  I have pissed in the mouths of men and slapped them around with their own dicks (practically).  I have watched them destroy themselves with drugs throw their money at me in effort to seem manly and as a result their manliness has disintegrated before me.  They’re not nearly as strong as I thought they were before I first started dancing at 22.  From my first day at the stripclub, I wore my 4″ stilettos and was suddenly able to look them in their eyes and see them for what they really were: vulnerable.  lonely.  compassionate.

It was the prostitution world that really helped me see this, as well as being a dominant.  I didn’t finish the journey in the stripclub, as all the stripclubs in America are ruled by pimps that exploit their workers at least to some degree and in the worst case scenarios they mirror the sexism that the mafia has with their harem of girls that one has become familiar seeing in movies.  (“Tell her to go upstairs and see the boss if she doesn’t have her stage fee..”) I have defiantly held my ground in verbal altercations and watched them back down.  Sometimes I have lost and a screaming cussing dude has chased me into my car after I have refunded him his money back.  So,  I have also lost and retraumatized myself in this effort.  Prostitution was the only thing that could have done this.  Stripclub stripping is legal, somewhat safer.  I could have not gotten arrested in a Craigslist sting, nor robbed or ripped off in ways that I had as an escort by staying the stripclub.  It was all a part of my beautiful struggle, my journey that I am still on.

Today is the first week of my 2011 marijuana cleanse.  I try to do it once a year.  Last year it was because my asthma had gotten so bad that I could barely breath without coughing like an old man every morning.  I abandoned my bong for 50 days and then broke down and went back to it without condemning myself.  I have since switched from smoking to vaporizing and have eliminated smoking anything from my life.  This also eliminates most of the social rituals of being a stoner because most people don’t vaporize.  I can’t believe it’s been a year already.  I used to love my bongs so much, now the taste of smoke sickens me.  I caught a cold Occupying LA and going to rallies in front of city hall.  It was the first major rainstorm of LA’s autumn/winter cold.  This rally was also the first activist event that I had really believed could make a difference somehow.  I hadn’t been to a march or rally in over a year, maybe two.  I thought often about supporting Oscar Grant’s case, but I just knew what the outcome would be whether I took the time to wake up in the morning to support his cause or not.  I was right.

Whenever I am sick, I don’t feel like using marijuana because clouding my head with what would normally be euphoria just ends up feeling like I’m just clouding my brain with smog.  So sickness often is a blessing in disguise for me to take a break from a medicine that I am usually mentally dependent on.  I have since kicked my dependence on asthma steroids.  I weaned myself off of them slowly using a herb called Lobelia which I would drop into water and drink to help relieve some of the symptoms.  It was working.  This was a relief to me as the ashtma medication that seemed to work on me the best cost $200 for a months supply.  I knew that this was just a sham from big pharma.  The doctors prescription said I NEEDED it twice a day everyday when because of finanncial constraints I started to use it once a day and then once every 3 days and then..only as really needed. (in addition to Lobelia tinctures).  I was proud of kicking this dependence.  Medical expenses are no fun.  I still owe my asthma doctor $350.  A visit to that clinic was the same cost to me as I charged my clients ($300/hr) yet, it never seemed to even out, it was never easy to pay the bills and buy the needed medicine and I still have a tab with them.  Today I am proud of the fact that I have found St.Johns Wort to help with my depression, Passion Flower extract to deal with my anxiety and I have only used marijuana ONCE in 7 days.  The cold allowed me to not crave and the herbs help to alleviate the symptoms that I often use marijuana for.  I use marijuana as a pain reliever for chemical imbalances AND emotional pain.  When I face difficult situations with people I am often running to my weed supply, driving straight to a dispensary to feel better and be cradled by my familiar nurturer who sings an internal lullaby and tells me softly “Do not worry about what they are saying.  Do not worry about what they do.  This, too shall pass.”  It is like an herbal teddy bear, I cuddle it and it helps me sleep better at night.  Judge me if you will but you aren’t the one who is holding me or offering to come over when I am depressed, you are the one who doesn’t want to hear my bullshit, who can’t hear my bullshit because it inconveniences you, because it triggers you.  So keep on talking your shit, and I will keep using my weed.  I want to have a baby in the next five years and join the ranks of all the wonderful sex working mamas that I know who have succeeded in defying society’s stigma.  This year’s cleanse is not for the asthma, its for the future baby.  Twice already this week tough times have come and gone, I have cried in depression without crawling to my usual supply of painkiller and survived.  I am super proud of myself for this.  Every little obstacle that I overcome I give myself a gold star because you won’t.  and it’s quite alright.

Why don’t you just work without an agency?

I’m not that good with advice.  Because you don’t  know..you just don’t know.

I wish I could be a successful independent escort without agency bullshit and make 100% of my profits.  but i can’t.  Wouldn’t I just love to do phone and webcam work without depending on Niteflirt to get traffic to my listing?  Of course.  I just need as much money for advertising as niteflirt or cityvibe or eros or any of the agencies that i work for spend, which could be up to $1000 A WEEK.  Who woudn’t love to meet all the clients that I meet as an agency escort without having to deal with the bullshit.  Wouldn’t you love to be part of an elite $4000/hr Emperor’s VIP or young Heidi Fleiss type of agency if you were part of one?  I would.  But the stakes are higher as we’ve seen with Deborah Jean Palfrey’s agency scandal.

Why don’t you just go “indy?”

I tried to be an independent escort investing thousands of advertising dollars in the yellow pages, internet websites, weeklies etc.  I tried to be an escort agency myself (and only had the worst most undesirable women apply to work with me) and because I love all sex workers it was hard to be so shallow and even racist in order to make money.  I’d rather have others do that for me and me be the more innocent pawn so I can use the “I’m just doin’ my job” defense.

I am NOT the girl in the picture.  I am not the girl you talked to on the phone.  I can play dumb lots of times, because I truly am kind of dumb to the details.  It’s going to be at least $200 more than you thought you were paying and it might make you mad but i can’t care for you.  It’s YOUR LOSS or MINE.  and living on $20 in my wallet for who knows how long.  One indy client at $300 an HOUR a week, means you are living on $300 a week.  Not cute if you have rent and car payment and need to eat.  Another thing that makes it easier for me to sleep at night, is that if it isn’t me taking your money, it’s gonna be the bitch behind me and I’d rather it be me of course.  And, like I said, I’m nice, smart and I have sex.  Not as bad as it could be for the average agency trick.

To make the phone ring off the hook, you used to be able to use Craigslist but since CL has become the favorite of police stings and sex worker predators or you need to spend at least $500/month on various advertising sources (which also isn’t police sting and predator free either)..

and then there’s the hobbyist reviews boards which i DESPISE.  and coincidentally, they despise me too as made evident in a recent blog post that I wrote on one of these stupid white collar internet locker rooms.  (What’s on your menu?  Do you kiss?  Anal sex?  Can I review our sexcapades on the boards with everyone?  Can I eat “dinner at the Y” meaning Can I go down on you?) I HATE most hobbyists.  Their very essence is the core of my irritation with patriarchy and privilege.  It takes ALL the power I love about sex work.  I’m not a whore because i love sex and really want to submit to these motherfuckers.  Most of the guys I am fucking, I wouldn’t be fucking if they weren’t paying.  So trying to be nice, fake, shallow and dumb to uber male privileged dudes who I hate in order to drum up more business and ‘good reviews’  has never been my forte.  I am a sex worker because i am trying to reclaim power in a sexist and patriarchal world and maybe you think from the post below that I am totally CRAZY.  But I understand it.  I have never fought back against men like I have as an agency escort.  My recent relationship has also been a vicious verbal fighting one with power struggles as well…I know, you would look and listen to my relationship and say “I can do better.” but i’m single now and before that guy I was single for 9 years.  Being alone can be better but finding a good relationship is not always the easiest advice to follow.  It’s not something you can control all the time, even though you might want to .  Although, I am a MAGNET for low achiever, fixer uppers, men and women with addictions, jail and prison records..I shouldn’t be a prison teacher because I’d end up engaged to one of the inmates in a week.  Co-dependents can be the most romantic people, I swear!

What I hate most is that I can’t use my own photo and make a lot of money.  I have to use an agency photo that the horny client calls first and then show up and negotiate my way into the door and negotiate another two bills out of his wallet or credit card before we get into his bed.  For some reason when I post an internet escort ad on most of the major known websites, my phone doesn’t ring off the hook.  I don’t make enough to survive without working agencies.  It’s too bad, actually.  I wished my indy work could sustain me.  I would be fine JUST doing webcam and phone sex and occasional escort dates.   It’s not like I enjoy driving around from 8pm-6am.  Sometimes I put in 120 miles a shift.  I am my own driver.  It saves me money.  I dated a guy who I started dating by pulling out of a nightclub for a one night stand.  He had a small knife around his neck, that looked like a necklace medallion.  I think I could stand to invest in one of those.  When you actually have sex in agency work, I believe that you are a little safer.  I figure typical agency girls roll with drivers because none of them will even do a hand job for $500.  They make it seem like I crazy for doing half of what we say someone will do! I work for 2 agencies at the moment.  One is high end low volume and the other is my regular agency gig that I work at 3-4 times a week, that I tried to quit in April after keying up some guy’s car.  I steal clients from the agency by getting independent repeat clientele.  The 2 agencies I work at don’t care and don’t expect it, especially not the cash and dash agency but I have worked for some that instill fear in the workers and say that they have fake clients who check up to see if you are stealing clients from them by giving them your personal phone numbers.

Lots of agency work works out pretty well until someone traumatizes me.  Because I’ve been out of it for 8 months, going back has been kind of exhilirating.  I know that I can’t do it for too long though. I have learned my threshold for this work is pretty low.  It works well if you do it 3 months on and then off, if you can afford it.  I am prepping my resume with an internship so I can hopefully get some paid media work in the field I would LIKE to be working in, not one that I am settling in just to barely get by.  I don’t want to work full time in social justice non profit outreach work.  I want to be a singer, an entertainer, an artist FIRST.  then an activist.

But I know that it is only a matter of time, perhaps a week or a month until some blow up happens.  Mastering how to de escalate verbally without being hurt except by words and shouting.  I am great at that, but I have proven that I don’t take people’s shit on my knees with my mouth open.

Sometimes though, it feels like  I am asking for a dude to hit me, so I can press charges.  I fucking dare you to hit me.  I actually did this (dare you to slap me) in the 7th grade and a boy slapped me.  It was the first time (and maybe only?) time a guy has slapped me.  I didn’t press charges on the boy.  We were both in 7th grade.  but I was pretty moded.  I didn’t think he was going to hit me but he did.  It wasn’t too serious but memorable for sure.  Fighting is martial arts even when you’ve never really studied it.  If your opponent is angrier than you are you can easily deflect this energy by remaining rational and neutral.  (but still heading for the exit with your money in hand hopefully as fast as possible). Aikido combined with exit strategy..

I never wanted to carry a gun because I don’t like guns.  Having a gun on you will only get you in more trouble.  If you never draw a gun on someone, you won’t have to have the experience of having a gun drawn on you.  One of my other ex boyfriends was a gun toting weed farmer who was arrested for pulling a gun on someone on the freeway in a road rage incident.  Stupid gun behavior.  I’ve managed to not have any physically violent incidents.  The work is traumatizing on a regular basis, but it is also cathartic when you stand up to someone.

I have mace in my bag and I used to have  a stun gun but that disappeared a while ago…

Some of my fellow sex worker activist escorts that I’ve organized with in this movement are privileged enough to not have to take clients past 10pm and to not take clients who do drugs.  I have never done sex work that way.  I guess I’m just not that kind of working girl.  I did get a sugar daddy from agency work, and I am thankful to be doing this blog on a beautiful new MacBook Pro that I got as a gift from him.  I float from roach motel to 5 star suite between clients of various class levels both independently and with my agencies, but it’s just that the review board hobbyist scene doesn’t match my personality and I guess I like to play these party boys like slot machines, perhaps that’s what it is that I am addicted to.  I like to be the dominant collector of their consensual submission.   I have effectively found a home to a specific type of sex work that I have learned how to navigate quite well, how to exercise boundaries, practice plenty of sex worker self care systems.  One of my non profit harm reduction friends worked as a driver at an escort agency and is now an independent filmmaker, a recovered junkie and MARRIED to an escort he used to drive with the agency.  They are making a film about it.  Brad Pitt was once an agency driver.  My life is fucking crazy.  I can be in the underworld and blend into the straight world, and occaisionally flirt with the VIP world all in one week’s time.  I guess that’s why I do.  This chapter of my life clearly is not done.  I want to prepare a different career path while I do agency work just like i did with SWOP-LA.  I was the director of a non profit who went to meetings and training and I was prepping myself to be a full fledged legitimated HIV prevention funded non profit at one point but pulled out to save my soul.  My heart is not in that work.  I am an artist first and foremost.  I must now take my time, money and energy and not codependently work on the problems of other sex workers before I work on the problems of my own life.  I moved down to LA to get involved in the media capitol of the world.  I must now use agency work to do THAT.  My priority before was to use my money to decriminalize prostitution or further sex worker rights in LA.  I am trying to be a singer, a video and film producer, a personality.  I want to to turn this blog into a book and more…I wish there were more options than agency work, and there will always be people who say they don’t feel sorry for you, I have other choices, but I just don’t see them.  Or the opportunities were simply NOT presented to me, because if you think that I don’t try for to find them, you are wrong.  I am an overachiever and workaholic.  Believe me, I try.  Or the way I see the world is simply going to be different than others.  I tried it and I didn’t like it now I must do something else.  Transitions take money.  I create my privilege with this form of sex work.  I have to bust my ass it seems just to be on the bottom edge of being middle class.  and if i let go, like I did when I quit the agency how quickly I fall to stuggling broke ass class.  Hungry and hopeless in no time.  EVERYONE SAYS I HAVE CHOICES, and I guess I’ve already made them, but I never really saw them as choices, because I didn’t create the options, I just made the best of what was presented to me.  I hate the word CHOICES actually.  Hate it.  TEaching high school was not my lifetime pinnacle folks.  There are so many people who actually believe that and chastize me for CHOOSING sex work and sex worker activism over continuing to teach.  I taught high school to round out my activism that was pretty entrenched in sex worker issues.  To me, I became a qualified social justice activist through my experience as a teacher and upon getting my Masters of Ed.     To me the issue was crucial and dire and the sex worker movement needed me to return , and just like any other war needs soldiers, but now I am ready to work on my own battle more directly and thus the meltdown will hopefully have settled by now and I will now meld into a beautiful Phoenix Rising statue from the metal kiln..

ANYTHING LESS THAN THE PERFECT VICTIM

is absolutely unacceptable..

“Why are you sitting there drinking Naked Juice?“she said.

“Don’t one of those cost like $4?”

I was sitting on the floor, trying to get SUPPORTED.  This woman really doesn’t care about what I put in my stomach.  I had been coming to this anger management group which has been politically retitled “Rage Resolution” because anger, they think can be not managed but resolved.  This Black woman was about 10 years or so older than me, had done sex work, drugs and more but of course, because in my report back to the group that I was still broke..she erupted into her criticism on what I chose to eat for dinner that nite: a Cliff Bar and a Naked Juice.  $3 drink, $2 bar=$5 total.  “Yuppie” nutrition and meal replacements that are NOT available for consumption in a good HALF of Los Angeles grocery and convenience stores and most definitely not available in stores in East AND South Central LA.  No one would spend $5 on a bottle of protein and a chunk of calories that looked like a piece of turd but filled you up.  They would rather spend $6 on a Carl’s Jr meal with fries and a big drink.  (Cuz it makes you feel FOOL!)

But it wasn’t about the implied yuppie foods it was the fact that I was even EATING at all and daring to call myself BROKE.  Because if I was truly broke, I wouldn’t have food to eat at all.  (You could live in Aaaafrica! or Innnndia! or Skid Row! they say, but even if you came from those places or lived there now, they would NOT care about you more or less).

I shouldn’t have $10 to pay for a group full of mostly court mandated clowns who would use the 2 hour group to put their 2 cents towards strangers on how they should think and live their lives.  I was there voluntarily.  In fact, including the group I have clocked in 5 hours of therapy THIS WEEK.   I am soooo privileged.  I am eating.  I am soooo privileged.  I have money to medicate with marijuana.  Even if I don’t spend a lot of money on it, but rather sell it off to other friends so I can get mine for free.  Even if I trade sex or companionship with lovers who grow or growers who love so I can stay medicated on my transitioning sex worker budget.  Nope, that’s not good enough for THEM.  Because then you are a drug addict and they can put you into a little box and throw you and your ideas out.  Even if you have a medical prescription people will still say “medicate” as if it is a joke.  And this is also partly a joke in the medical marijuana community because our “medicating” sometimes looks like it’s fun, but that’s only if you are looking at half of the pictures.

They wan’t you starving, bleeding, and DEAD.  But as you walk in zombie form around the world, dying they look at you and don’t feel anything different.  They don’t give you money, love, blankets, shelter.  They won’t get a gun so you can shoot yourself.  Just leave him!  Just get off your medication!  and then once you do and you are feeling the pain from that  They will just look blankly at you as if you are not their problem.  And then they go on with their miserable pathetic lives.  But they’ll probably say some ignorant comment first and call your suffering melodramatic.

The same woman who had her comment about my dinner also burst into laughter after I talked about my car/rape symbolism.  and she was a sex worker and a woman of color who used drugs all her life.  Did that make her an ally?  Hell no.

I should have kicked her ass.

My therapist knows that I medicate with marijuana.  It was one of the main interview questions that I ask them when I decide whether I can pour my guts out to them safely.  Don’t try to stop me from doing sex work.  Don’t try to stop me from smoking weed.  Those things are immutable and inflexible until I decide that they are.  I am not here to work on abstaining from any of those things…(I have already gone through a cycle of therapy trying to do that “unsuccessfully.”  I am a harm reductionist, not a 12 stepper).  One time the last 3 whiteboy roomates that I had at this “bohemian” warehouse tried to pull a marijuana intervention on me.  To appease them, I attempted to stop smoking for 3 weeks.  At the end of 3 weeks, when I broke down and told them I was going to start smoking again, one of them said,”Oh, You weren’t doing that for us.  I thought you wanted to do that.” or something…I don’t even remember but I’ve been high everyday since then AND if I see those fuckfaces in this city I don’t even acknowledge their presence.  If you want me to live my life without my medication, then WHAT do you propose you will provide me to replace it?  Oh, right, that’s not your problem.  Deep breathing and meditation? Yoga?  Walking?  Journal writing? Singing? Dancing? Art?  Activism?  Yes, yes, drug counselor..thank you.  I do all those things while medicated.  If I weren’t medicated, at times, I doubt I would be so profilic and functional.  I’ve cut back on alcohol almost “as a drug” because it makes me black-out after too many.  My first date rape at 17 was under the influence of alcohol and let’s just say that I have not really gained the trust back in how “people” will act towards “drunk girls.”  (You can even go to your free internet porn channel and it’s actually a genre of porn that you can watch (rough sex with a ‘drunk and stupid’ girl), and I have to confess because the way that I was raped was nothing as sexy as that, the clips actually turns me on while it disturbs me as a whole but I’m not on a crusade to ban its distribution or existence.  They also have Japanese Hentai porn which is the same as it’s always been Japanese schoolgirls getting raped and forced to LOVE it: also designed to stimulate and if you watch it long enough, the sounds alone will turn you on!).  Those directors are like, hey, who said Rape was about power?  We want to put the SEX back into rape!  And they and their all male video crew give each other high fives, and they slap about $600 cash in the hands of their consensual victim and she is happy too.  Because she was probably a survivor and needed to re-enact her shit too and that’s why she enjoys scenes like that…

There was a time that I used to only be able to hit the stage WASTED.  I would down a few shots before stumbling on, and then I would wake up throwing up and miserable..crawling to my bong to ease my alcohol poisoning.  But of course, if you don’t drink or smoke weed all of this might as well be in Korean.  It’s why I love Amy Winehouse.  She’s a beautifully talented trainwreck that everyone criticizes.  I probably love pot as much as she loves alcohol.  But we are raw like Billy Holiday, going through our pain and singing our pain away on and off stage.  This is not JUST a music video, this is our lives…So don’t tell us NOT to get wasted because you are not the director and producer of OUR LIVES.  But, sometimes the drugs and escape mechanisms can kill us too…that’s why I picked marijuana as well.  Maybe I’m not as suicidal and self destructive as I think I am.

When I was a student teacher at one of the most rough at-risk school in LA, and I would come home and cry every nite and then some nights had to be strong enough to go to class at night to complete my Masters Degree.  I did it all with the help of Mary Jane…She held my hand and walked me to class and kissed me on my forehead before I went in.  That’s when I was living with the aforementioned roommates…sneaking a bong hit out the window of my own room!  Even though, some would easily say prostitution or sex work is the REASON I medicate, I would say that teaching high school was also a continuation with that dance with men, misogyny and male violence.  I wrote my Masters Inquiry on it actually based on a teenage student who insisted on calling me “sexy” instead of my name.   I was challenged in different but sometimes equally or more violent ways as a teacher, I witnessed a “race riot” or fight of about 20-30 students and about 10 riot pepper spraying school police first hand so I’m not sure sometimes, if people say that teaching is safer than sex work.

I did do a 3 week VOLUNTARY cleanse for ME once last year.  I have done it recently.  But,  I believe I am highly functioning train wreck.  marijuana allows me to medicate the pain but be highly functional.  It is better than alcohol, heroin, other prescription anti-depressents, vicodin makes you itchy, valium makes you forget…(which many people in pain will float to as an option..)

Everyone wants you to leave your bad relationship but they will not be there when you are alone.  They do not even attempt to suggest a replacement for what you cling to that crutch for.   And sometimes, the pain, like the pain I feel from my mother rejecting me doesn’t go away for years.  And once you are a survivor of trauma, the world doesn’t stop being traumatic or get any safer,  so if you have PTSD from previous trauma there is A LOT that can trigger you.  But most of the time the freak outs are few and far between as I have worked very steadily on my healing and nursing my fears.  I usually reserved those outbursts of anger, shouting, and shoving with someone that I loved.  My[ex] boyfriend.  The article in Salon.com talks about the passion and intimacy that fighting really is, and why, to me Fight club is such a gay [homo-erotic] movie.  When I said that in Rage Resolution, the Black man across from me flew into a rage about it! [because that would mean that he was mandated to this group because HE was gay]  I find out later that the GUY that he talks about knocking out cold in a Del Taco was actually a FEMALE TRANSGENDERED woman.

Also on my list, is “do not try to convert me to your religion or ideology” which is what a number of people would like to do with people like me.  But I reflected last night, that I haven’t had anyone try to convert me to any organized religion since my undergrad college days.  I must give off the untouchable sinner vibe that the Mormons don’t even want to approach.  I’m sure people think that “I am as bad as the mormons.”  But I don’t knock door to door, people come to me usually.  They come to hear me speak or ask me questions, and sometimes they violently try to convert me with their rudeness,  or their “interventions of love” but that never works.  The system tried to convert me, but I am still working albeit very little but I believe if your religion is America and American “Freedom” then once you read about and experience who the laws are designed to protect, and once you realize that it isn’t you then you can easier change religions.

I was talking about how the CAR was an extension of your BODY, and your LIFE which is encased inside of it as you drive it.  When I had a Toyota SUV, my car was broken into 5 times.  The 5th time it was completely stolen and gone for almost 2 weeks before it was recovered.  That year was extremely traumatic for me.  I even walked up on a transient guy going through my truck, scavenging around.  I caught him in the act of this, but didn’t kick the door closed on his torso which was halfway inside the scene of the crime.   We had a verbal confrontation and he ran away.  He said he wasn’t the one who broke the window.

I should have kicked his ass.

If I were a “real” man, I would have.  Instead I drove to the class I was going to be teaching and shared my anger with my students.  That was almost 4 years ago.  That poor car was totally cursed.  Three years later, after I got the car back from the impound, I slid on black ice in the Bear Valley of California, crashed into a sideroad boulder and then another truck crashed into me from behind so hard that the back glass window shattered.  Have you ever been in a car that was hit by a car?  It hurts.  Marijuana (eating not smoking) and massage nursed me back to health again.  Considering all of the car accidents I have survived (one time, I hit the center divide of a freeway at 80 mph and walked away) I guess it would seem like a sort of a slap in God’s face to say that I feel so hopeless I want to die sometimes.  I know that I do not have PTSD from just sexual violence.  And suprisingly I was NOT high or drunk on anything when I looked death in the face behind the wheel that one near fatal day (and I’ve been in about 5 other not as major car accidents in 16 years, is that better than the average truck driver?)

I felt raped every time I would come back to a large puddle of broken glass, my clothng and CDs strewn all over, amputated stereo wires and receiver guts spilling out of the dashboard.  File a police report.  Are they going to investigate and attempt to catch the perpetrator? No.  They are not even going to pretend to care.  I paid out of pocket everytime.  Just under the $500 deductible but way over my income disposable at any given time.  I suffered finnancially and felt that this act of invasion was out of my control and one of my family members shook their heads and implied me somehow at fault.  It’s hard to distinguish between the car accidents, parking and speeding tickets (which are my fault BUT also the very profitable industry of policing and fining drivers as part of the state revenue that plays a huge role) and the car jack and break ins (which are not my fault and San Francisco is known for). This has been a symbol of all the many times I have been sexually violated and have not used the police to help me “catch the guy” or help me to heal.

I know, I am NOT the perfect victim.  I smoke weed everyday.  I eat.  I don’t have enough of a drug problem for you to discount me.  I am a sex worker.  I have a car. I still have food to eat. I have a laptop that I got from a sugar daddy but that I could sell if I needed to pay my rent.  But then if I sold my laptop, it might make me feel more hopeless, even if it helped me stay housed.  It would be a sad day indeed.  My computer symbolizes any hope I have for the future.  And once I give that to some hustler for half of what it’s worth because I am really that desperate it will be the end.  So I guess, to the critics credit, since I haven’t yet stooped that low, then perhaps I did have an option that I hadn’t yet considered.  But a miserable one to wish on someone.  I chose to forfeit something less tangible.  I dropped my car insurance until I can get more income.  I am driving illegally.  I still have things.  Services on the verge of being disconnected but nevertheless you have services.  VOICE OF JUDGMENT AND CRITICISM: “You need to appreciate your life and all that you have.  You are just an ungrateful selfish piece of shit and you need to shut your mouth everytime you think you want to share your feelings with the world.  Because unless you are the perfect victim, no one cares.  And even if you are, they are just pretending to care, by making comments about your life or maybe they’ll suddenly start caring during your funeral, but unless you are Robert Kennedy or michael Jackson, no one will even know that you are gone.”

I am parked in the parking lot of my PO Box.  A small unconventionally dangerous to squeeze in lot with a rent a cop Korean security guy with sunglasses and a nitestick.  There are a TON of parking lots like this in LA.  I’ve been hit in one parking lot (her fault) and been in one other collision which was another her fault while driving this car that I currenly drive which is OWNED mostly by Chase Bank, not me.  I recently got into a smash up that was my fault but because of car insurance, I was covered.  They were covered.  I am very very familiar with filing claims with insurance companies and how long the whole process takes.  I am very aware of how insurance companies create a barrier between the rage that occurs between the two drivers that have collided.  Like lawyers act as a mouthpiece for the convicted so they don’t tear out the eyes of the cop that arrested or beat them up.

We start to exchange information and I have to reveal to this guy, who I’ll call Kumar (cuz he looks like and his about the age of the Indian actor who played Kumar in Harold and Kumar stoner films) that I don’t currently have insurance.  He reveals to me that he WORKS for an insurance company and that he and 3 other clowns were out on lunch.  “Wow.  How hilarious.” I say sarcastically.

“And what are you doing parked in a loading zone?  Did you pull in AFTER I was already backing up?” he said.

“NO.  I was sitting here trying to have a nice day, checking my messages when you BACKED INTO me.”

“Well look, I’ll help you out here.” he said looking at the shark bite in my left fender.  “I can give you $200 cash for the damage then and then we’ll just say it’s even.”

“You mean to tell me that you work in insurance claims all day long as your day job and you’re going to estimate that damage at $200 knowing that NOTHING on a vehicle costs $200 when it’s been hit” I said. One of my mirrors is missing half of the plastic cover cuz I hit it off someone’s fence.  “Replacing the driver side mirror in it’s entirity is like $250.00 from the dealer, I said, that’s why I haven’t done it.  There’s no way that repair of that is going to be $200.  You are totally exploiting my situation.” I said. “But, hey, there’s nothing keeping you here.  You CAN just walk away and screw me if you wanted.”

“How do you know it was me who did that? Maybe you already had that damage? You’re car is pretty banged up”he said.”Like in the same accident that broke your mirror.  And this is a loading zone, you aren’t supposed to be parked there!”

“But you STILL would have hit me, if I was a truck or a car.  So your logic is not a good enough answer for you to not be at fault.” I argued.

“But then if you were a truck, I would have saw you.” he said not getting nearly as angry as me, mocking me..

“Look, I gotta get back to work, so you can either take it or leave it.” he said.

“Are you trying to deny that you FUCKING hit me??” I yelled and I could feel myself boiling up.  “I can’t even talk to you right now.  Just write your name and info here.” I said and sat in my car to cool down else I might try to knock this guy out in front of his stupid clown insurance friends.

I was already unstable and depressed about my finnancial situation, my loss of trust in so called friends and lately because so many people have questioned my right to call myself a survivor, I have been remembering and rethinking about all of the sexual trauma that I have survived in my life throughout the week.  I couldn’t believe this guy was trying to blame me!  It was all so symbollic of male privilege and power that my trigger was flicked and now I was full of rage at all the rapists and men with male privilege in the world.

I wanted to kick his ass.  To knock him out in one fell swoop and jump on his 5’8, 160 lbs body and start punching him and screaming,”What the FUCK do you mean it’s not YOUR fault???” I would start hitting him and not stop…

but I didn’t. On Facebook, I posted an article on the West Virginia rapist, “The father of five children and midget football coach did not testify. But jurors watched a taped interview in which he confessed to picking up at least 15-20 prostitutes and holding a knife to their throats or choking them while he had sex with them.”  He is a handsome Polynesian looking guy who picks up street workers with baby seat in his car.  He is a family man, community member, misogynist and violent rapist and even though he is in West Virginia I feel that he is living in my neighborhood too…

When I watched “Boys Don’t Cry” with my then boyfriend and he didn’t feel moved, and every time he insisted on calling a transgender person by the wrong pronoun, I felt like he could be even sleeping in my bed.

“We take shoving to be a provocation after which one is justified in committing violence. But kids shove. Brothers shove each other. We can shove each other. A shove is nothing. It is just a shove. There is no logical reason why it should lead to violence. It is perhaps technically battery. But the rules and laws around battery and assault, I would argue, are also formed around our the cultural assumptions of a fundamentally violent culture. We all know the dance. Why could not two men simply have a harmless shoving contest? It would be funny. Consider what the shove actually says. What the shove says is, I love you and I want to feel the violence of my love for you by having some contact. The shove says, I want some pain inflicted, will you please engage in some mutual infliction of pain? I need some pain. The shoving says, here, look at what I am willing to do: I am offering myself to you, to be beaten. Will you please attack me so I feel whole again? Here, look, I will shove you again. That is my request. The shove says, “I want you. I want you to beat me.” I beat up a guy and now I feel guilty (Salon) (via melissa)

The dance of violence between men and men is one that men who grow up are very familiar with.  Most men have gotten into at least one fight.  most men fear violence as much as women do but express it through posturing, homophobia, rape, pre-emptive ass kickings..

But women have that desire in them too.  We are raised in a violent culture, where fighting and war are the ultimate symbol of triumph, conquer and revenge: power.  I always move to want to fight with men.   My ex and I got into some screaming raging public fights, and I have even thrown lite objects at him and punched his chest like the powerless little girl that I am.  I loved him, so I trusted him enough to have further outbursts of rage like I had never done with anyone else before…this is the secret language of Domestic Violence that they don’t teach you and that the survivors aren’t allowed to really express.  But when we went to couples counseling once, and the counselor asked me if I had ever hit him and I said yes, then I became the batterer and HE was the victim and we were not allowed to receive services because we did not match their criteria.  Neither he nor I were the perfect enough victim.

but i never have done more than really close posturing and running away from angry gorillas.

My last 3 years as an agency escort was about my dance with sexual violence and misogyny.  I would act and re-enact scenes which begged the collaboration of the dance of violence and gang rape, male privilege and power.  I was literally asking for it or the system in place set us up to have to fight our way our of some ugly negotiations.  I WANTED to have the LAURA CROFT BARB WIRE ending to my next attempted rape.  Whatever it was that they were going to give me was going to be given to me in a clear cut blow.  I would feel their fist connect with my face.  I would fall to the ground.  I would be the perfect victim.  Except that i was a whore and my “friend” had just stolen $300 from him.  I thought for some reason, that I would be okay in a houseful of 5 guys who had just gotten ripped off.  I even told her she could go!  Older brother started screaming through the house like an ape banging on his chest.  He came for me.  “YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THIS HOUSE UNTIL YOU GIVE US THAT MONEY.”  I handed my stack of cash out of my purse and headed straight for the door.  He chased me out the house, yelling at me the whole time to continue his little war dance over me as I drove away..

I survived that.  I drove back home from Chatsworth, shook up.  Sat at my desk while the sun came up, while I watched the Latin workers start their rounds on Metro to start their work shift…smoking my post traumatic stress disorder into a soothing enough calm that I will be able to go to sleep for at least 6 hours during the day.

I have worked very long and hard hours on my recovery and wellness from sexual trauma, and for years before I identified as a prostitute I was very focused on sexual assault awareness activism as a platform for my mission to leverage male privilege once and for all!  I did not plan to engage in this dance for 3 years, nor do I regret some of the amazing experiences that I did recreate.  I did educate and empower men, I did provide and satisfy for them and they did tip me excessively on top of the agency fee MOST of the time, and that was why I did it for so long.  I met my sugar daddy by stealing him from my agency, they don’t expect repeat business of course, and that is how the system is designed.  So if I am able to appease their egos enough so they don’t chase me out of the house yelling then we have a great time and everyone is happy for a while..

When people pretend to care or understand it urks me.  I ran from Candy the elderly Skid Row sex worker that I mentored to save my sanity.  I am too unstable to deal so closely with someone else that is more unstable and self destructive than me.  When people say “You aren’t suffering, if you were REALLY suffering you would be like THIS, or THIS or live HERE or look like THIS.  And Candy was all of those things and more.  And also she wasn’t.  She was more capable than most people thought.  She had an apartment and disability income.  Streetwork was her “side job.”  She used drugs to escape the pain and sex work to recreate and seek safety through the validation that sex work provides sometimes.  I don’t think it was about the money.  When I walked side by side with her, I would notice that people either cared for her or they looked at her with disdain and wanted her out of their business.  She was the worker that the rapist in West Virginia would prey on.  She looks “expendible” because her face and body show signs of drug abuse and self destruction, so therefore it would be fine to just off her.  We would be doing her a favor..I came to know why she used drugs to escape and I felt scared of her.  I felt like she was a reflection of who I could be if I changed from marijuana to crystal meth like her.  And if I started to escape with meth for 30 years like her…but without blaming her, I blame others first.  And I think of her when people say I don’t have it so bad because I know her and people don’t rush to help her either, and that was how she came to me, and because she was too engulfed in her pain and her addiction, I couldn’t hang on..Or else soon, we’d be sitting on the sidewalk scantily clad and fucked up, smoking crack out of the same lightbulb and spitting insults at passerbys in the park…

I got the other driver to pay $340 cash on the spot.  I didn’t lose my drivers license.  I didn’t fight him.  I didn’t go to jail with an assault charge.  I came out ahead.  Unfortunately, the money has to go towards the rent instead of the repair of the car or even the acquisition of insurance but I am usually stressing about rent at this time of the month.  Frantic and desperately waiting for the next call to come through.  If I had dealt with it any other way, I would not have gotten paid.  I had thought that money and emotional confrontations with strange men only happened in sex work, but apparently it happens in other situations too.  I am thinking a lot about survival lately.  People are confused with me because I am confused with me.  I have survived a lot.  But not as much as HER or HIM OR HER OR HER!!!!!! Everyone wants to play trauma Olympics or Oppression olympics because they are so wounded…but believe me my pain is as valid in my world as their is in their world.  I pulled over after I pulled out of the parking lot and freaked out in tears.  It was very difficult to keep my cool in that situation even though I felt like he was instigating me to lose it, even though he was completely oblivious.  He was never admitting fault  Even after he paid me, he was saying some “Next time you should…” sentence and I told him to stop talking and go back into his car.  “Even as your paying me, you are not admitting fault.”I said,”that alone can make me want to kill you!”  I’m sure they thought I was crazy.

I am working on touring and doing some events specifically around sex work and sexual violence.  My story is very common for a lot of workers and I find that it is so challenging to not want to talk about the glaring negatives in our profession while we push towards decriminalization.  I also find it interesting that I have never painted my work as all happy hooker or all victim of rape and serial murder but that both are simultanously true.  This blog is part of the way that I survive the violence that I am asked to hold and not speak about.  People do NOT want to hear about your pain.  And if your pain is not as bad as their pain, then they will be sure to let you know and cause you more pain.

My self esteem is very low and I am having trouble believing that anything matters or that I will live to see any major changes in how sex workers are treated, or how many sexual assaults occur.

I am also interested in the emotional finnancial connection that many women and sex workers have around money and men.  Most people have a very intimate relationship with money and ideology but many women who gained economic empowerment and perhaps surviving violence (from home or relationships) because they were able to not only survive against the odds, but also acquire above their projected or expected means can feel like they are going to DIE when it is SLOW.

I am in this book with 2 other sex workers..It’s exciting to have something to tour with and it was fortunate that Susan invited me to be a part of this proejct without me actually submitting.  And now I am peddling it wherever I perform as part of my SURVIVAL INCOME.  And would you believe that if I dare use that word like that people are all up in my Facebook!