Paying For Sex.

The question “should I hire a sex worker?” has come up often throughout my career working in the sex industry. Only you can answer that question, however I want to take a moment to weigh in on the topic by celebrating that sex work and sacred intimacy is a critical part of our history and social fibre, and that, if it feels right to you, it is a potent gift of self love to pay for sex or other erotic experiences. 

When hiring a sex worker, it’s a rich opportunity to indulge in something that you really want to do. There is no confusion about who the experience is for - it’s for you. There are so many unowned and complicated dynamics within sexual relationships that can confuse the question of ‘who is this for?’ when it comes to sex play, which can be cleared up within a professional container. Further, often there are attachment patterns and interpersonal dynamics that show up in sex - whether it’s via playing with a partner, friend, or hookup - that might be eased when erotic experiences happen within a paid container. This often offers some clarity about baggage: when might you be ‘giving to get’, enduring, not being clear about your desires, or doing one of the other countless things that we all do as messy humans playing the messy game of sex and intimacy.

A great thing about working with a professional is that you can seek someone out to support you in trying out something new, edgy, or vulnerable that you’ve been curious about. If it’s specific, maybe there are folks that specialize in what you’re curious about - which is such a fun ‘hands on’ way to learn about an interest! And, sex workers often have skills in supporting someone in an erotic experience, how to track an experience to ensure it stays on track and otherwise bring a host of competencies when working with you that a partner / friend / hookup might not have. Also! Sometimes there are things that a person might be curious about that they’re not even sure they will like. Working with a sex worker offers an opportunity to get curious about what’s a yes / no / maybe before embracing it more deeply.

For people who are not in erotic connections, navigating romance, dating, plus all the evaluatory energy of how your age/race/gender/body/intelligence/humour/class/religion is being perceived and treated may be A LOT. Navigating hookup culture may also be complex. Sex work offers a clear opportunity for you to meet your erotic needs without having to dance those dances.

To those in monogamous relationships… living in a culture that expects folks to be 100% sexually (and socially) monogamous is HARD. The strictness and narrowness of this form of living is a challenge for many. Hiring a professional offers the opportunity for a clear structure while also nourishing unmet needs, exploring new and ongoing desires, and bringing sexual excitement into your life. Sex work also offers a fun way to explore sexual goals you share with your partner that require another person to fulfil. Of course, reimagining relationship structures away from this strict form of monogamy is another valid option, and culturally needed because the impacts of this relational system have been deep and harmful. Yet, if you’re not at the point where dismantling and rebuilding your relational framework feels like a ‘yes’, sex work is a stellar way to still honour and meet your needs.

And, to those who have done the work of imagining an erotic life that includes erotic friendships, loverships, and/or partnerships that exist outside of monogamy… it doesn’t mean that all the arguments above aren’t also still real for you too! Introducing new people is still challenging (and perhaps you have a whole posse of folks that require consultation), and navigating meeting folks is also still challenging.

All of this said, I’ve saved the best point for last. Hiring a sex professional is great because they’re likely REALLY GOOD AT SEX! If we want to eat really good food, listen to really good music, and wear clothing that fits really well, why in the world would we not want to have sex that is also really good?! These folks are often sex nerds and many do personal and professional development to be good at their work - just the way that accountants and school teachers do. There are sex work specializations, and a variety of types of folks available to hire, from full service sex workers to erotic masseuses, to folks who specialize in BDSM and pro domination, to those who facilitate deeply spiritual work, to those who are interested in offering educational experiences. Sex work is old work and historically ranged from the deeply spiritual to delightfully specific, to practically functional. The same range of offerings still exist today.

In closing, sex workers dare greatly. Sex work is real work, and deserves to be considered just as legitimately as massage therapists or chefs - both of whom are specialists in pleasuring the body, yet neither of whom face stigma and danger in their work. It is 100% great if sex work is not your cup of tea, but it is also perhaps worthwhile to take a pause and get curious about how you actually feel about tea. How do you imagine it tastes, smells, feels in your mouth? Is there something you could do to make tea better for you? In what circumstances would you try tea? Have you spoken with tea-loving people? Have you tried a variety of teas and you’ve learnt that it’s just Not Your Thing Right Now? Who or what made you feel the way you do about tea? Who or what is served and harmed by you thinking that something’s not your cup of tea?

Lion’s Tooth Tenacity.

A few dandelions have popped up in my front yard and have inspired me to take a moment to celebrate this early spring healer. Dandelions (from ‘dent de lion’ or ‘lion’s tooth’) are old and important medicine. Early to arrive in the spring, they bring up much needed vitamins and minerals from deep in the earth through their strong taproots. Calcium, iron, potassium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, etc. This naturalized plant (a plant that is not native, however, has found a friendly-enough place in the local community) offers a much needed early spring boost of warm colour and potent resources for humans, creatures, and soil as we all begin a new cycle.

Their taproots are ‘front-line workers’ in distressed soils: they break up compacted, dry, and under resourced earth so air, water, and earthworms can move in and begin to also revitalize. Their blooms and complete edibility offer resources for pollinators, animals, and humans. And when these plants decompose, they offer minerals and nourishment to the soil’s surface.

When I see dandelions, I feel a glow in my chest and belly. When dandelions arrive in yards, concrete cracks, and fields dry and tired from intensive agriculture, I see vibrant little signs that disrupted ecosystems are moving towards reclamation and repair.

To shift this conversation to the erotic and the body - no matter our causes & conditions, we all have patches, fields, lawns, or continents of landscape that may similarly feel compacted, neglected, or overworked. At times It might feel complex to survey the reality of ‘what is’ in our landscapes - to sit on the ground holding a handful of soil and wonder what in the world it is that we’re ‘supposed to do’.

Perhaps imagine for a moment that there are dandelions budding and rising up in the soil of your body. That there are revitalizing glimmers of pleasure, of sensuality, of eroticism. Maybe there’s sweet patches of dandelions. Maybe there’s one poetic loner in a sidewalk crack. Maybe there’s a radiant meadow. What would happen if you welcomed these moments of pleasure, sensuality, and eroticism? If you allowed their roots to pull nourishment up from deep within? If you tasted their nectar and nutrients? If you smiled at their plump sweet rays of sunshine? If you let them spread?

What would happen if you offered the dandelions in your soil the gift of your encouragement and protection? They’re tough and hardy - they don’t need fussing. But they do need to be saved from weeding, and to be understood as allies on a healing path.

The same can be said of your pleasure. No matter how it shows up - no matter if you think your pleasure and eroticism is supposed to be more like a rose or a tulip or a peony - it is exactly what it is. Your pleasure is unique and wild natural medicine. It arrives with the healing properties and lion’s tooth tenacity of the dandelion. What would happen if you stepped back and watched your dandelions as they grew, bloomed, and went to seed? How would it feel to watch seeds of repair and growth spread like little clouds across your skin and soul?

Transformation, Pleasure, Power.

I celebrate Grace Lee Bogg’s wise words that invites each of us to “transform yourself to transform the world”*. Many of us are sitting with the knowing that we desire a better and brighter future for ourselves, our communities, the planet. We become what we practice, and it is my feeling that by inviting more pleasure into our lives, we practice inviting more joy, feeling, rest, connection, slowness, contentedness and healing into our lives. Further, the world becomes what we practice, meaning that when we invite more pleasure into our lives we invite more joy, feeling, rest, connection, slowness, contentedness and healing into the world.

My work is build from a foundational desire to support folks as they explore what’s working and not working in their own lives: with sex, pleasure, boundaries, selfhood and relationships. To create an opportunity to invite more of what we want into our lives, to move towards what we long for.

For me, choosing pleasure means inviting more of our yes’es into our lives, more of what fills our cups. And, this certainly isn’t simply about sexual pleasure. Pleasure means naps. Pleasure means art and handiwork. Pleasure means sex. Pleasure means singing. Pleasure means gardening. Pleasure means meals with friends. Pleasure means writing. Pleasure means activism. Pleasure means dancing. Pleasure means cuddles with pets. Pleasure means walks. Pleasure means long showers. Pleasure means a good spanking. Pleasure means sitting in silence with a cup of tea. Pleasure means music. 

We are all taught constrictive and limiting beliefs about the acceptable and unacceptable pleasures we should enjoy, and when to enjoy them. As a result, many of us are left with feelings of suffocation, lifelessness, being broken, wrong, ‘not enough’ or ‘too much’ - yet it is also an undeniable truth that our current social system is fundamentally pleasure negative and disinterested in honouring the multitudes of the human spirit. Perhaps it’s time to take matters into our own hands and massage life and light into the artful complexities and hungers of what it means to be human.

After all, as Oscar Wilde (might have) said, “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power”. I firmly believe that when we explore pleasure and our root selves, we’re actually exploring much more. That an embodied relationship with our sexual voice and choice is an embodied relationship with our power. An aware relationship with our libido - our sexual energy - is an aware relationship with our life force energy. Cultivating mindful and pleasurable practices with ourselves is cultivating mindful and pleasurable practices with our local and global communities and planet.

*learnt via adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism