Posted on by Miss Brook$

fast girl and slow girl

Came across a hardcover of Fast Girl in the clearance bin at a non-local bookshop and had to have it. Yet another hooker book I haven’t read only now I have the space and time in which I could, so I did.

I remember when the scandal came out, wrote about it, in fact. It wasn’t until I read the book this week that I finally realized Suzy Favor was her really-real name because it sounds like a hooker name if ever there was one.

Her track career I read with deep envy as a sprinter who had the love but never the support or training to make anything of my obvious ability. But then, she also made it clear my love of running would have never survived the brutality of her training, as it barely survived hers, disappearing entirely for the latter half of her career, resurfacing only as a way to heal many years later.

That, I understand; survivor of the photography teacher whose motto was “make them cry in class”. (I never did, I saved it for the bathroom breaks or my dorm room because I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, but it certainly wasn’t for his lack of trying.)

Her wild escorting career was interesting to read, and laughable in some ways, like her insistence on staying in fancy rooms when she only did outcall. (She was impressed by a $300 Agent Provocateur set, I wondered if it came from the clearance rack. Then I realized I’m a jaded snob and wondered when this happened but that’s a whole different thing.) She never does math: the difference between the cost of her Vegas trips and what she actually made after the agency cut. Her husband does better hooker-math than she does.

Her sense of competition with the TER rankings was so incredibly misguided, even though it was her own sense of self that did the guiding. While that self was supposedly in manic mode during this time, that self was also her drive to win in running–it’s part of her nature no matter what and can’t be blamed on mania. It is what it is; she’s an Olympic-level athlete which makes her a rare person by any standard.

Her fall from grace, which I supported with extensive Googling, even reading the awful, original TheSmokingGun piece on her, had me asking only one question I’m not sure I asked myself when this broke because the scandal brought up so many other questions. The sole question to be asked about all of this is: Why? What did the asshole client and TheSmokingGun think they were doing? What was the purpose behind her outing?

Really? What was the actual reason?

TheSmirkingReporter for TheSmokingGun who talked to the naive Suzy (she should have told him to fuck off and that was it), and the hit-piece written never give any reason as to why outing an athlete and mother as a part-time escort was important news.

She wasn’t selling nuclear secrets, she wasn’t trading insider secrets or helping to rob casinos, she wasn’t even able to help her husband with their realty business without causing more problems than she solved. So why was destroying her two professional lives, and nearly destroying her entire family circle worth it? What was the goal? She was acting in a role millions of women have, and her clients were with her as partners in that role. They were married too. So why was exposing her and not them the big story? What made her a target? What significant social good was accomplished by exposing her?

I’m not hurt or changed in any measurable way by knowing about Suzy’s secret career. No one I know is hurt by her actions. I can’t remember that society was unduly influenced one way or another by her escorting.

As far as I can tell, the only thing the outing accomplished was to was hurt her and everyone associated with her. That’s it. It stopped no crime, exposed no dirty dealings, society is not any better for her exposure. It got clicks for TSG.

That’s it.

Ruin a woman and her entire life for clickbait.

Truly a worthy 21st century misogynist goal.

It’s a question so basic she doesn’t even stop to ask it in her book and I wish she had. She talks of her anger at those in her life who stifled her and yet she apparently doesn’t have enough anger at those who destroyed her and I’m including the website that bothered to give enough credence to the story to actually, physically report it.

It’s what’s known in media circles as a non-story and yet somehow it became a scandal.

This is all rhetorical, I know exactly why a beautiful woman was destroyed as much as possible by men who couldn’t have her.

The other reason I’m writing this is for those sex workers who also suffer mental illness and aren’t being properly treated. Suzy and her doctors would have benefited greatly from having her undergo a Genesight test. I know I’m flogging an expensive medical test. It works, though. That’s worth every penny to those who suffer.

The test results and report, and I have the original copy, show how I process a variety of psyche mediations. It also shows I have two recessive genes that ruin how my mind processes its own chemicals, specifically serotonin. I’m genetically-predisposed to depression due to mal-processing of chemicals and the only solution is the correct medication that balances my brain’s chemical processes by creating a workaround since we don’t have the knowledge to repair such issues.

My issues are indeed all in my head and my parents are to blame. How many can say that? (Anyone who has similar genes, really.) Bad jokes aside, it was a relief I didn’t know I was seeking to discover that my issues are scientifically-provable, that I wasn’t making things up, that I wasn’t making too much of things, I wasn’t crazy, I have an actual medical issue for how I think and feel and have lived. Fortunately, it’s a treatable issue no matter how invisible it has been.

Before I was treated properly, yes, I have suffered deep despair and depression throughout my life. When my situation is horrible, I’m suicidal. When my situation is better, I’m mostly okay (but can fall into a depressive state with little provocation). Adding other problems, like PTSD, into the mix just exacerbates every single issue of these illnesses to a very large degree.

Proper medication allows me space to think clearly. My deepening burnout would have literally killed me if not for being properly medicated for the better part of the last two years. Even then, it was a near miss. I had to realize that burnout was still an issue of my mind pointing out a problem to me, something I needed to fix, and it was screaming as loud as it could to bring my attention to the problem. It took a while, but I listened and have begun fixing the problem.

At any other point in my life, almost all of which was spent free of professional psychological intervention, this would have ended very, very badly. Most likely permanently–the ending I’ve seen for myself since I was very, very young.

Reading Suzy’s account of her attempts at professional help made me wish she could have taken the test. It would have changed so much in her later life. Perhaps she has taken it now, and is being properly medicated based on her actual body chemistry. It’s a much better solution than what her doctors at the time did: prescribe for her based on semi-informed guesswork, with what she claims was disastrous results.

Her story made me realize I was luckier than I thought to have access to a professional who knows of tools like Genesight. It’s just a tool, not God, a tool that takes guessing out of the equation. Guesswork when dealing with psyche meds is a terrible way to try and treat serious problems. (Says the person who was dosing herself for three years without doctor supervision with a psyche med that just made things worse.)

I hope she, and those of her audience who need it, continue to find healing.

The last thing I want to say about this story is the story itself. When I was Googling for information on her, something I don’t remember doing when her story broke, everywhere I went I found tons of pictures of her. There were always running photos and sexy photos. She’s a beautiful woman and was a beautiful college girl. Her daughter will likely be beautiful as well.

The only video I watched was her Nike commercial, which is hilarious. I’m probably going to search for videos of her running, at her peak. Just so I can be jealous of her running form, which has to be efficiently perfect. (Mine’s not great, not terrible.)

The sexy photos, however, were always on the stories deriding her fall from grace; the most sexy photos on the leering TSG article that outed her, of course. Even the Nike commercial exploits her beauty and sex appeal.

I’m not even covering the multiple verbal beatdowns and sexual harassment she received in her life due to her natural build: large breasts on a petite frame; unusual in a high-level runner. Or her disordered eating quickly descending into bulimia because she didn’t fit an idealized body type.

One long-form story on a running website that detailed her running career had an ad for another story on the same website, ranking the country’s “sexiest female athletes”, dead-middle in this story castigating a woman for capitalizing on her sexiness.

The cognitive whiplash actually hurt.

Be a beautiful, sexy woman; don’t be too sexy, don’t personally profit off it, don’t keep it to yourself either but share it freely with everyone who wants a piece of you, but don’t share too much either because that’s also very bad. Don’t take pride in yourself or get a big head but please continue to keep yourself up and be sexy because you owe it to everyone who wants to look at your. And for God’s sake, don’t profit off of it. Especially that.

How does anyone expect a woman to stay sane? It’s impossible.

Posted on by Miss Brook$

the rest of my life

And then one day someone offers to set you free, and pay for your freedom. And freedom does cost money, it does cost to escape even though you didn’t know you weren’t free, not really.

And then you start living your life for the first time ever. Each day you count “Today is the first day of the rest of my life” and “The second day…” and “The third day…” and you feel each day as they are, as a newborn. Cleansing rituals are performed but almost unnecessary. Your soul knows.

And then you start discovering you have to relearn your body. That once it used to do this and be capable of that; long ago. You don’t remember how it felt anymore, only that it happened. And maybe it can happen once again. With time. And love. And freedom.

And the ransom, for that’s what it really was, is paid without blame or expectations. All you have to do is live and follow your heart. It’s you who has to tear down the walls around it, it’s you who has to figure it out. You have the time now, the freedom, it’s been bought and paid for.

And you keep counting “Today is the seventh day of the rest of my life” and erasing everything you can, tossing out so much, selling what might bring some money on the open market but that’s not you anymore and you couldn’t be happier.

And one day you realize your body is yours again, you realize it wasn’t yours for so long, a lifetime.

And the only person who touches you is someone you love, no one else. No one else. There is no sharing with others. There is only an equal exchange and no boundaries and freedom. No pain, no mauling, no fumbling, no stupidity, no anger, no resentment, no boredom. Freedom and joy and uninhibited pleasure and devil-may-care fun. Waking up every day together in the same bed, the bed that invites sleep and cuddles and the desire to never leave its comfy confines (the dangers of wonderful sheets and blankets and a body heat generator next to you). Sometimes he starts the tea, but only if he suspects you’ll actually get up.

And there are plans, of course. And things could go to ruin, of course. For once, why think of it? You are free. You can plan together, share the worries together.

And it’s not said but you know how it happened. He waited until you broke yourself, until you knew you could not go forward another inch, your soul was speared and gutted, then he made the offer. Not so you wouldn’t refuse but because you were finally ready to see clearly and see what everything was and was not.

And because he hated watching you suffer, each and every time, worse and worse.

And there has been so much clarity. The important thing is happening though, every single day of the rest of your life: you wake up free. The gratitude for your freedom, your new life, is humbling. The rest starts falling away like a molted shell, let it rot where it falls. It never contained much good to start with. The clarity is ruthless and embarrassing.

And clear vision has never changed the past, how could it? It only maps the future. The first days of the rest of your life.

Posted on by Miss Brook$

Sex work burnout: a very long journey

Burnout. Every career has its version and sex work probably has higher rates because the work is so much more personal, because sex workers shoulder such a huge portion of the work individually. A stripper cannot outsource her work and make a living. An escort can outsource some of her administrative work, but has to make more money in order to pay for that luxury. We cannot clone our selves to go meet clients. Scaling up or out is impossible. At best, we can make and sell content for passive income, or raise our rates. We still have to do the actual work though, whether writing, photographing, interacting, and showing up.

This is a novella-length essay of my journey into and out of burnout. I’m still in the process but am through the worst and on my way out. Take what you find valuable, if anything, and I sincerely hope it helps you. This is not a “poor Amanda” essay, some of these issues have been self-caused and it has taken solid moments of clarity to realize this. Avoid my mistakes and do better.

There are many ways to organize this and I felt chronologically would be best for you. It’s not how the feelings and experiences are organized in my head, but you don’t live in my head. I’ve done my best to make the steps of the journey clear to both of us.

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Posted on by Miss Brook$

face or no face?

Vanessa D’Alessio wrote a great piece over at TitsandSass around the issue of showing your face in conjunction with your online escort work. My response got eaten by the Intertubes, I think. Instead of reposting, I decided to expand on it a little here.

This article has been at the back of my mind since I read it last week. My arc has been slightly different than hers. When I started stripping, I was fairly out and allowed myself to be photographed, topless, for one of my club’s websites (back when the Internet was indeed tubes that connected computers using gerbils and string). They never removed the picture despite repeated requests, even after I left stripping and began escorting. (It was later removed only because they redid their site.)

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Posted on by Miss Brook$

imperfect victims

What every sex worker faces in the fight for justice, whether in the larger activist sense or in the smaller sense of considering whether to file a police report or restraining order.

These thoughts came about due to reading the about the legal defense tactics of Oklahoma cop Daniel Holtzclaw, “The Claw.” He specifically chosen stigmatized women with criminal charges of some kind or another to rape: sex workers, women with drug addictions, and all of them black. He knew they were easy targets and no one would believe them if they ever dared come forward, including a 17yr old. His actions came to light after he sexually assaulted a woman who was none of the above. (Echoes of Gary Ridgeway, anyone?)

Unsurprisingly, his defense is resting on tearing apart the women he assaulted, which is easy to do because they’re imperfect victims. They’re not angels, even the underage teen had an outstanding warrant for trespassing.

The empty-courtroom lack of support for the victims of Holtzclaw is what moved me to write this post. Some of his victims are fellow sex workers. I’m not aware of any sex work org that offered support to them in any form, correct me if I’m wrong. Various women’s groups seem to be shying away from supporting his victims as well, presumably because they are not “perfect” women, especially with drug use and sex work aspects.

These tactics have been used on every woman who has ever filed rape charges against anyone; against any sex worker who has attempted to file charges against anyone for anything. The most recent use of both sex work stigma and the imperfect victim in the courtroom is Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver’s (aka War Machine) defense that since his ex-girlfriend Christie Mack was a porn star, she pre-consented to everything he did to her.

Imperfect victims may not be easy to like. They may do shady or illegal things themselves. They make what others consider bad decisions. (Generally, it’s seen as bad decision on their part to get in the way of their assaulter’s fist or rapist’s penis.)

While most people use the term “unsympathetic” victim, I’m using the term “imperfect” because I think this has much more to do with the victims being easily judged by others for their flaws and shortcomings, as opposed to whether or not they’re relatable and/or pitiable. Their obvious social imperfections make it very easy to “other” them, leading to their condemnation — as opposed to focusing on the perpetrators who harmed them.

Yes, there’s a personal interest here. All Jill and I have been for the past 3.5yrs are imperfect victims (that is, assuming we’re seen as victims at all). I do not like identifying as a “victim” but from a legal standpoint, I am. Like these woman, a predator saw an opportunity and took it. Every lawyer Jill and I have consulted with has been concerned about our sex work coming up in court. Because of this “concern” by gutless lawyers, we’ve never seen the inside of a courtroom because they were too afraid to take on the case. Why was it somehow bad that I was a sex worker injured by my client, yet not seen as legally vulnerable for him to have been a client? Sex work stigma, imperfect victim, female.

Imperfect victims exist everywhere, not just among women and sex workers. Younis Chekkouri, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, is an imperfect victim, despite apparently being haplessly innocent. Isn’t innocence part of the definition of victimhood? Why then, is innocence removed from imperfect victims? Because, somehow, their lives render them less-innocent than the perpetrators who harmed them.

This has been said before, but if a perpetrator is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, how does it manage to work that the victim of certain crimes is automatically guilty, never to be innocent at all?

Every single time another person (usually black, often unarmed) is killed by police, their lives are scrutinized to find just how much of an imperfect victim they are in order to justify their death. The amazing discovery is that, aside from Tamir Rice (a child), none of these victims were perfect. They were human, sometimes making poor decisions, sometimes prior law-breakers, even if the laws broken were minor. Their imperfect victim status is touted as all the reason in the world for their death. It’s certainly a line of logic that sex workers recognize. When it comes to heavily stigmatized people, basically, you’re an imperfect victim because you’re still breathing.

While the antihero is a celebrated figure, imperfect victims open themselves up to re-victimization simply by being imperfect. Why does it work that way? Is it the inherent vulnerability of being a victim in the first place? I think that has a lot to do with it, actually. Only the perfect are allowed to be vulnerable, if you are imperfect then you had it coming to you. An antihero is not a victim. Often, antiheroes seek revenge and this is the opposite of vulnerable. Antiheroes aren’t “othered,” they’re seen as something to emulate.

The best, most meta statement on the antihero/victim dichotomy is summed up neatly in The Crow. Eric Draven comes back from the dead to hunt down and kill the extremely criminal men who killed him and his fiance. As he begins his night of revenge, he ironically tells one of the men (before stabbing him to death), “Victims. Aren’t we all?”

Imperfect victims who have the guts to come forward, especially once their cases make it to court, should be offered moral support — at the very least. This battle gets fought over and over again: every time a child abuse victim speaks up, a rape victim files charges, a sex worker is harmed by a client or someone in their personal life, and so on. At what point does the reverse happen and the perpetrator become an imperfect criminal? Even mass shooters often manage to escape the amount of blame heaped on the average rape victim, as minimizing excuse after excuse is offered for the shooters’ actions.

What makes a perfect victim? Being none of the above. White and male makes a huge difference to accessing justice, or managing not to be the victim of a crime in the first place. Money creates an even bigger gap (some of the people unjustly killed by police in this year have been white men who were poor). These three things alone will prevent the desire to show imperfections. Nice, right? (And who needs moral support when the entire system is perfectly aligned with your needs?)