Free Best Sex Writing 2012: The State of Today's Sexual Culture by Susie Bright, Rachel Kramer Bussel

kind of femme who is dubbed “high maintenance” or “a princess”—indeed these labels were used to describe me—though the reality was that sex work had only made me tougher and more fiercely independent. Still, there wasn’t anything punk rock or edgy, humble, or even queer about my exterior femme persona. I pretty much looked like I belonged in a commercial for a chat line or a diet pill. The familiar fit of you and me (your butch and my femme) had been disrupted. Had I sold out our butch-femme codes? Had I snuck the bourgeois “other” into our bed?
    “I make more money when I look like this.” How frequently I used this disclaimer. It was the fractured thinking I employed as a sex worker: there was the persona and then there was the real me. But, as I’ve already mentioned, easy dichotomies fall short. As with my appearance, sex work began to shape my life. Prostitution money paid for my liberal arts degree, an MFA in creative writing. If I was going to be the college-student-by-day, working-girl-by-night cliché, I was determined to average at least a 4.0—even if it meant turning a date with a dental student during lunch break so I could pay for my biology tutor that same afternoon. I was raised with the principle of sacrifice; if I was going to obtain the things that my class background hadn’t afforded me, I figured I was bound to suffer at least a little.
    While I’d grown somewhat accustomed to grappling with the personal sacrifices that came with sex work, witnessing your inner conflict was an entirely different challenge. Although we both agreed in theory that my job ought to be treated like any other line of work, if your boss called to offer you an extra shift, our biggest dilemma was whether the overtime would cut into our upcoming scheduled dates. “Baby, you don’t mind, do you?” was all you needed to say, conversation closed. In contrast, entire nights seemed to be ruined when my madam called to ask me to take a last-minute client. As I’d whisper into my cell phone, I witnessed your face stiffen. Eventually, the sound of my ringtone alone was cause for pause.
    I never had to lie to my friends about what you did for a living. “She’s a carpenter” or a “welder-in-training,” I boasted. These were strong, rugged, and proudly butch professions. For you, telling people your girlfriend was a sex worker was a crapshoot, at best. Of course, I was out to our close mutual friends. Others were told a half-truth: that I was a stripper rather than a full-fledged, blow job–performing prostitute. This explanation spared you from uttering an outright lie and also from making your buddies uncomfortable or concerned. What kind of man dates a prostitute? A tyrant, a pimp, or a broken man who can’t take care of his woman. Our radical queer values didn’t protect us from these stigmas. “I wish I could protect you” was another brave thing that you frequently said to me. I took what comfort I could in this sentiment and let you wrap your arms around me a little tighter. This tender statement, however, affirmed how truly uncomfortable you were with sex work and, worse still, how uncomfortable you were that my work made you feel powerless. Butches aren’t supposed to feel powerless. I was inadvertently de-butching you. And, as a femme who believes (and celebrates) that her role as a femme is to make her butch feel like one hell of a butch, I was de-femming myself, too.
    Confessions don’t come any harder than this one: sex work changed the way I fucked.
    I remember the first time I refused to kneel for you. We were making out at one of our fuck spots, between a row of highschool portables a few blocks from your house. You took out your cock, ran your thumb along my bottom lip, and yanked my hair as you did when you wanted me on the ground. It was Friday night. The next day was my regular Saturday shift, when all the big-tipping clients visited the massage parlor, and I couldn’t risk having