Being a whore taught me to swallow resentment like nothing else. I learned to hide my disgust at clients’ wealth and entitlement, dodging questions about my true opinions and stroking egos to keep them sweet. This skill allows me to tolerate certain kinds of mistreatment when it’s logically beneficial to me, not breaking down when others around me do, but it comes with a different kind of cost. It soothes conflict in my life like a balm – one that secretly poisons me every time I use it.
A client tells me about his sick wife and how he can’t possibly be expected to tolerate so little sex while she’s ill, justifying his cheating to himself whilst I listen with a growing rage. My teeth feel like they’ll crack from the force of gritting them but they’re not even actually clenched. I’m smiling softly and asking him what kind of sex he’s been craving. I ponder what I can do for him. I’m thinking about how much I hate him while he’s giving me some of the worst oral of my life, then I mirror his dirty talk when he decides he wants to get to the main event. All I’m thinking about is his sick wife, torn between fury over how he’s disrespecting her and being begrudgingly pleased that after he’s fucked me he probably won’t harass her for sex that night.
I get a job at a bar and my manager sits down at the end of the night and watches me clean while he eats takeaway. I didn’t eat during the break from my double-shift because the kitchen was too busy to provide food for staff. My legs are screaming because I’ve been on my feet for so long and the extent of my disability has become far more apparent as I’ve pushed my body to its limits. The manager reminds me of tasks still left to complete that I’m already well aware of, his feet up while mine throb, and I focus on the fact he gets paid much more than me to do far less. I make a show of cleaning extra thoroughly and don’t do so much as sigh.
A client brags about his watch as he gets dressed after we’ve had sex. He tells me that he took it off for our session because he didn’t want to risk scratching it, because it cost over £30,000. I think about how that watch is worth more money than I have ever made in a year. I also think about how someone who can afford to spend so much on a watch can afford to pay for my time on a repeated basis and might even be willing to book an overnight session with me eventually. When he turns to look at me, I make sure my expression looks sufficiently shocked and impressed. I tell him I don’t know much about watches but I had thought it looked beautiful, telling him that he must have some sort of important job to be able to afford a watch like that. Each time he comes to see me, I daydream about stealing his watch. I imagine gnawing off his hand at the wrist to take it from him, instead of removing it gently.
My friend implies that she views me as a woman, based on a trait I share with another trans man she is discussing who she says she struggles to gender correctly because of this characteristic. She doesn’t see what she says as transphobic, nor does she seem remorseful for saying it to me directly. There’s no consideration for the dysphoria she provokes. I think about how she’d give a half apology if I called her out, saying that she wasn’t talking about me anyway and that she knows the other trans man isn’t actually a woman. I know that if I insisted she shouldn’t say things like that and should work on her transphobia instead, it would cause a rift in parts of our social circle. There would be those who she’d go to for comfort, insisting she hadn’t intended to hurt me and that I was cruel no matter how politely I criticized her, and I can’t afford to be less welcome among the only group of people left who won’t ostracize me. I tell her I don’t struggle to gender him correctly, then change the subject to praising a recent project of his and leave it at that.
A client instructs me on how to manage my finances, citing his experience in business as a reason I should listen to his advice. He bases his recommendations on the assumption that I can see 5 or 6 clients per day at my hourly rate, leaving room for no expenses and failing to account for sick pay, then moves on to talking about investing. I think about how many times I’d be assaulted per year at a rate of 5 or 6 clients every day instead of maintaining that volume only for short bursts. Of the physical toll. I know I couldn’t find that many clients if I tried these days anyway, outside of a brothel that will no longer take me and would take 50%. While I use my hand to get him off because he couldn’t manage it with the condom on, I picture his financial ruin to get myself to smile.
I don’t swallow my resentment every time I feel it. There are calculated risks I take to relieve the pressure and times when my dignity is more important than whatever material gain I would get for keeping quiet, not to mention the occasions when speaking up is worth it to help others in future even if it harms me now. My problem is that because I know I can hold in the anger, I do it a little too often. I swallow resentment so that a client doesn’t hurt me because I’ve criticized him, or to keep my job… then I find myself doing it just to keep the peace between friends. I wonder what would happen if I stopped.
One time I’d like to lose it. I’d like to yell at someone for misgendering me, to tell a client he’s entitled and that his wife deserves better, and to insist that the rich prick with the £30,000 watch should be paying more for my time if he’s going to rub his wealth in my face. I know doing these things would make me materially worse of because it would lose me some regular clients and friends. Escalating these situations puts me at risk of violence. I know all of the reasons I should continue as I have, but to an extent I envy those who cannot control themselves because it means they can access some sense of release or catharsis without the blame associated with making the conscious choice to respond in anger.
After what I’ve been through while selling sex, I think I’ve earned the right to be a resentful hooker. All I have to do now is let him out once in a while.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 