I Don't Like Lion Words!
The comedy and confusion about numbers and magnitudes in sex work
I begin this story in a reflective mood, thinking about a part of my life that is very dear to me, and i end up recalling a delightful story that really makes me giggle. I hope it makes you giggle too!
My work as a Hofdame
A small, but extremely emotionally important part of my life, is that i work in pro-BDSM as a Hofdame (Lady in Waiting), where i assist my Domina friends. Basically, a Domina delegates the vital safety supervision role to her Hofdame (as a Queen would delegate important tasks to her close, trusted Lady in Waiting) allowing the Domina to sink more deeply into her role. For something as deeply theatrical as BDSM, this really makes for a much more enriching experience for everyone.
And, for me, it is a great honor to be trusted by my dear friends with this role, and also to be trusted by the client/submissive. My relationship with my Hofdame is always a deep and tender friendship. I'm not "for hire" in this role: i must do it with someone whom i care for.
I ADORE my whore friends — i crush on them ardently as an asexual but highly sensual and achingly tender person. They bring so, so much joy to my world. This is totally my jam, emotionally.
I ADORE my whore friends — i crush on them ardently as an asexual but highly sensual and achingly tender person.
It is a deep emotional respite from my day job in science. Things are changing, but physicists of my age were mostly old-timey men, and i yearned for the social connexion of close collaboration. We're all pretty “aspie” in physics (as well as being mostly certifiably batshit crazy), so that yearning on my part was always a pretty forlorn hope! That's kind of how i ended up with so many contradictions. And how i ended up with my darling whore friends. I wouldn't have it any other way!
Our clients come for healing
As for our clients, i can't quote rigorous statistics, but, on the whole, clients do not seem come to us with a sexual motivation — it's a chance for someone to feel that they can let go, put their trust in someone, and have that trust utterly honored in a world that often chews people up, disrespects them, and strips them of their dignity.
I think the words i would use for a typical client is someone who is world weary and with frozen, atrophied vulnerability. Their vulnerability as a person has been scorned and sneered at their whole lives, so they've pushed it away and they've forgotten it's there. Over many sessions, people like us often gradually help them find that long lost part of themselves.
It would be true to say that i think many clients don't really know what the urge is that impels them to us; there's something inside them that needs be brought into consciousness to remove its hurt. I really do think that's what the urge is. Typically we'll see a client for a number of years, then the frequency of their visits tails of and they'll just move on as, i theorize, they make peace with and resolve the unconscious wound that drove them to us.
It would be true to say that i think many clients don’t really know what the urge is that impels them to us; there’s something inside them that needs be brought into consciousness to remove its hurt.
As a woman who is gay/queer and also with a great deal of trauma at the hands of men from my younger years, this whole business has been a real eyeopener for me. Do i hate men, I wondered? This was a hugely important question, especially after Nature gave us my darling son and i became terrified i couldn't be the parent that all children deserve. (Spoiler: he has a personality that one simply cannot not love, so no probs there!)
Despite everything, this role has made me see that, no, i don't. I absolutely don't. The humanity of our clients is so raw. It makes for some powerfully tender moments and it actually restores my faith in people. Clients (not always men, by the way) open up to us, and we have an unofficial, but no less seriously taken, strict code of client confidentiality. Indeed, it is something that i and others push for German law to honor as it would the notes of a psychologist.
Misgynists and assholes are shown the door
This attitude is surprising to many women i speak about this topic with. Don't you have asshole clients, Selena? Sure, of course. But it is not unusual for sex workers in the BDSM scene to have several strings to their bows. We're not desperate and indeed highly discerning in taking clients. Especially in Berlin. The sex work scene blends strongly with artistic, theatrical and creative circles in Berlin. Almost all those i meet, like i do with my day science job, have other rewarding professional interests.
So misogynists and assholes are politely, but firmly and swiftly, shown the door. We simply don't have to take that crap.
The sex work scene blends strongly with artistic, theatrical and creative circles in Berlin.
But all this also means, on the flip side, that i take a very dim view towards the idea of ridiculing my clients and outing their stories when i do stand up comedy. I am asked from time to time why i do not use my BDSM experience as a source of material and i really don't appreciate that. I simply wouldn't find it funny — at all. My clients are human beings too.
To pull everyday people (as opposed to certain public figures) apart is something that is utterly cruel, profoundly mean spirited and doesn't interest me in the slightest. It certainly wouldn't bring me the healing joy, energy and fun that i seek in comic performance. And, actually, in my opinion, by far the funniest and most humorous thing about being a whore is not what we do, but how this topsy turvy crazy world sees us and stereotypes us.
Let me recount an interaction with the outside world whose memory i find priceless.
On burlesque, comedy, and oafish churls
I am also a Burlesque performer, and one of my whore friends, let's call her Lily, performs with me. Together, we are definitely greater than the sum of our parts (or at least, i'm greater than me!) in that, apart, we tend to be quite serious, pensive, nerdy and quiet people, but we both bring out comedy in each other that we never see otherwise! It comes from nowhere. It's a most wonderful zing to find myself saying things that i had no idea were within me! It is a most wonderful friendship.
About a year ago, we were delighting in each other's company on a gorgeous Berlin Summer's day, sitting at a table normally for four, but separate from other tables. We were drinking Gin and Tonics and getting ourselves VERY giggly. A very BIG man with a strong US accent came over and said, "Mind if i join you two lovely ladies?". Big men, especially, startle me. Especially here. Berliners are certainly not tall or big people in the scheme of things, especially in comparison with Australians.
By far the funniest and most humorous thing about being a whore is not what we do, but how this topsy turvy crazy world sees us and stereotypes us
His question came as he was sitting down, which already really got my back up because his gesture was so forward that we had no real choice. The silliness, giggly ditsiness, delight in each other between Lily and me had been snuffed out by this oaffish churl as though he had peremptorily blown out our candle on a shared birthday cake out by spitting on it.
Firstly, as a German (i am feeling more German than Australian these days), anything like this in this context (there were other tables to sit at) is totally offensively forward. Even as an Australian, it would have been offensively forward.
This twerp had already made himself through his loud manner conspicuous in the bar. I have many friends who are immigrants like me, aside from that they come from the US, and all of them want to leave the oafish aspects of their culture behind them, just as i wish to do with my own Australian roots. I fit in well and feel like me in Berlin. But this twerp, utterly unlike my US friends, seemed determined to be every unpleasant US stereotype in the observable universe on that day.
So what does this doofus regale us with? He's whining about how a "billion" means something different here from what it does in the US!!!! In Europe, the long number system prevails — a billion is always ten to the power of twelve, or one with twelve noughts after it. In the US, of course, it is a thousand times smaller — one with nine noughts after it, ten to the power of nine.
We actually went through this in Australia when i was little when "Billion" meant the same as it does now in Europe and the word "Milliard" was common usage in Australian English for what the US calls a "Billion" (exactly as the same word "Milliard" is current in German today). But, somehow, the long system died in Australia in the 1980s and we slowly drifted to the US usage. But how on EARTH he could think we would find this at all interesting was simply gobsmacking to me.
"Well Lily", i sighed with a stagey exasperation, "it's such a sublime sunny day today. I feel just like talking about the usage of the long number representation system, don't you?". Doofus didn't take the hint and kept banging on.
Suddenly Lily cut him off: "We're WHORES sir! Pray tell me (she's originally British and summons a wonderful posh accent — apparently one of her clients is a British Duke!) what interest do you think BILLIONS have for us? To COUNT OUR MONEY WITH or something?"
She has such an incisive way with words, and i instantly split my sides laughing. Gin and Tonic gushed out my nostrils and squirted the full meter across the table straight into DOOFUS's lap, probably with a goodly measure of snot added, because i had a cold! "Oh God, look at you sir, now you've gone and peed yourself YOU COMPLETE TWAT!". I was in agony, i was laughing so hard but genuinely choking to death as i had sucked a huge swig of Gin and Tonic straight down my trachea onto the top of my lungs. I was coughing genuinely fit to die!
“We’re WHORES sir! Pray tell me (she’s originally British and summons a wonderful posh accent — apparently one of her clients is a British Duke!) what interest do you think BILLIONS have for us? To COUNT OUR MONEY WITH or something?”
At last and my body slowly decided that, although i shall die one day, that lovely day in the sun was not that day. But O. Mein. Gott!!! Doofus was not giving up. Adjusting himself on his chair so as to turn his back towards the source of insults Lily, he started addressing me directly. "And what do you think about all this?", he asked me, earnestly.
"I think, sir," pausing, beginning to enjoy things, getting into the Posh Persona that Lily had clearly summoned to this Séance, "I think that i do not like Lion words very much. I rather prefer Tigers, if they are friendly, or, better still, Purring Ocelots". The stunned look on Doofus's face was priceless — he looked as though he were pithed, so I added, "You know, sir. Mil-Lions, Bil-Lions, Tril-Lions. Raaaaar! (doing my best drunken lion impression) Do you need a cup of coffee? You're a bit slow on the uptake, Sir!".
Now it was Lily's turn to choke. And lose her balance. G&T went all over doofus's head. We'd both had rather too much and i lurched clumsily forward to pick my friend up and make sure she was OK. Berlin cobblestones do leave a smarting imprint on your hinder end if you fall on them. As i helped her to her feet she let rip,
"WE'RE. NOT. INTERESTED in your fucking rubbish blatherskite! Now SOD OFF, you complete gormless cockwomble!"
And, just as blithely and nonchalantly as he had strolled into our personal space as though we mattered not a whit, doofus stood up and strolled off towards Bahnhof Rosenthaler Platz.
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