Confessions of a College Callgirl

This blog, penned by a pseudonymous author identified as a female sex worker, is always an interesting read -- but never so much as in her most recent post, "The Price." Snip:

It’s not easy to write about prostitution in a totally honest way because it is painful. Painful like being fat growing up and having people yell lardass at you out car windows and strangers approaching you on the street to tell you to lose weight. Painful like being a 13-year-old girl saving her virginity for marriage and being held down and robbed of that. I am embarrassed to talk about my pain, about the times I have been hurt. Especially when the road there was tricky and circuitous and partially of my own design. It’s hard for me to sift through the detritus, much easier to poke fun, to glam it up, to be some badass character. You guys don’t come to this blog to be depressed and there is plenty to write about that isn’t depressing. But when I get these letters, I see the danger in that approach.

I want to be very clear that I recommend this lifestyle for no one. It is easy enough to cross the line because the line is invisible. Much harder still to go back, to return to a time when you shared no piece of yourself with strange men, men you don’t like, even men who don’t like you. I detached myself completely from the work I was doing and felt that I was getting off scot-free with minimal psychological impact. I was having fun at first; I felt beautiful and confident and adored and I was financially secure for the first time ever. But those nights found their way underneath my skin. They just burrowed down deep under the folds of my subconscious like a rat nestled at the bottom of a shopping bag.

Link.

Image: "She thought sex would be the best way to feel that you are still alive," 2005, by Iris Schieferstein. Aludibond, dry prepared animals and acrylic.

(thanks, Susannah Breslin)

• [Anonymous]

  I have to wonder. Do those girls who go out to expensive dinners and then put out feel the same way?

• [cavalier]

  Say no more, say no more! Thanks Xeni.

• [pineapplecharm]

  How long before an Onion article about a guy “disappointed to discover $200 hooker wasn’t erudite, eloquent yet softly tragic intellectual”?

• [Abid]

  Excellent post – - – its incredible what our lifestyle does to our psyche. How much of what we’ve seen and what we’ve done can really be erased from memory?

• [wolf-cat9787]

  “I saw thee weep; the big bright tear came o’er that eye of blue
  And then me-thought it did appear a violet dropping dew.

  I saw thee smile; the sapphire blaze beside thee ceas’d to shine;
  It could not match the living rays that filled that glance of thine.

  As clouds from yonder sun receive a deep and mellow dye,
  Which scarce the shade of coming eve can banish fro the sky.

  Those smiles un-to the moodiest mind their own pure joy impart;
  Their sunshine leaves a glow be-hind That lightens o’er the heart.”

  -Lord Byron

• [Anonymous]

  Honest, Brave and Tragic…….This is life in its most Raw form.

  I will never Judge again.

• [Anonymous]

  All religions have something possitive for human life.

  I like the puritan idea of improving our every day life as a way of fighting against injustice. It is very similar, I guess, to the Japanese idea, but with a purpose towards society.

• [cavalier]

  Will we ever reach a point where Susannah is added to the masthead? I am not trying to be a troll here, just trying to recognize the major contribution Susannah makes to this site.

• [Silva]

  Out of curiosity, earlier this year there was a bit of an uproar about a blog-turned-to-book of an “escort” in Porto (Portugal), named “A Tua Amiga“ (“You Friend”).

• [Xeni Jardin]

  @cavalier: mmmmmmaybe! [winks knowingly]