I am so pleased with the connections I have made and ideas that are arising as a result of this post. To get a full feel for what I am trying to get at, please read the comments thread as well as the post. My half-baked ideas are starting to form down there because the original post was written without editing and without structure.
It is official. The connection I find between knowledge/schooling and sex moves beyond the theoretical and beyond the fact that I want to fuck my professors.
My notes scribbled inside The History of Sexuality Volume 1 could be for a future paper and they could be for this blog and I’m not sure which venue is appropriate anymore. I’m not sure that my identity as a potential scholar is at all divorced from my identity here. Each day that identity gets more fluid. I tell one more person that I am a phone slut for hire or that I am polyamorous or that I am kinky or that I own sex toys or any number of other details that are starting to feel mundane.
This evening I went to a Foucault reading group. It was 6 graduate students plus Jack, a professor in my department. I refer to him now by the name I gave him in a piece of fiction I wrote 3 years ago (and by “fiction” I mean “daydream committed to blog“). That piece was written near the beginning of my graduate studies (and at the beginning of this blog) but I have known Jack since I was an undergraduate. I don’t kid myself that I have come full circle in some way, but over 3 years of documenting my feelings and thoughts about sex must mean something.
The nature of blogging is that it busts up our ideas about narrative, there often isn’t a clear story or arc of reasoning. Especially in the world of personal blogs, the evolution of emotions and ideas is what carries the real narrative quality. With each post I write I know that it will reach the readers that have read every word I have ever published here (a *very* small group) as well as those that stumble upon it in isolation of what comes before and what comes after. They may see it 5 minutes after I write or 5 years but it stands on its own in a way that it absolutely cannot. That is my cross to bear of course, but sometimes it makes the writing unbearable and impossible. An impenetrable wall of hyperlinks, exposition, caveats, and insecurity. But I still write.
This isn’t an essay about what compels me but this is rather a story about how I am longing to set myself free from this anonymity. It sounds like a contradiction, right? Anonymity is supposed to bestow my freedom on me, allow me to say and be the things that I never could be in the rest of the world. But what if I want to be those things out in the open, proudly, and productively. What then of my ubiquitous “head shot” that features my arm flung over my face? Where my body is capsized, the emphasis of my being not on my eyes but on my mouth and my tits. Am I just a mouth and tits? I have a voice and I have a sexuality (or at least desireable curves) but I can’t be seen and perhaps I can’t see out. Perhaps you didn’t come here for a deconstructive analysis of my own dirty photos. Perhaps you are the reader I cited above and (if you are even still reading) you are thinking “what is this chick on? what can I get off to? isn’t this supposed to be a sex blog?”
I know that risk. I know that being a sex worker I have this privilege of being myself that I can only exercise to a certain degree. I do have to be always on, always willing to serve, I do have to present an image of myself that is both real and hyper-real at the same time. Am I horny? Generally, yes. This moment, of course. With you, absolutely. That is my mantra and it reflects who I am to a degree. It also determines me. Is it a fabrication if I have *become* what I strove to represent myself as?
So I was talking about Jack and the Foucault group. I sat with a group of my peers today and I talked about Foucault. Simple enough, something that graduate students do. But it felt like I had so much more at stake. Every fiber of my being was screaming to really dig into the implications of these ideas. What about sex workers? What about BDSM? What about bisexuality? What about a million other predilections/perversions that are all around us but I may not be personally invested in?
But we talked about power. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is the guiding idea in Foucault’s work and it is crucial to understanding what he says about sexuality and sexual identity/orientation. But I craved something else, an honesty that would shock and impress and be productive. I wanted to share knowledge, an ars erotica, with my peers but instead I operated in my usual capacity. I listened to Jack, I nodded my head, and occasionally I re-phrased what he said in order to make sure I understood it. He agreed and all was well but my insides were screaming and my mind was racing with ideas and questions that were both on the tip of my tongue and impossible to articulate.
So, I’m left in this chasm between my academic authority and the authenticity of my experience. Neither is represented here or there and I feel incomplete.
I know this post went in a million different directions and there are more still streaming around in my mind. What would Foucault say about this? Why do I even care what Foucault would say about this? Really, it is an absurd and laughable question but I still find myself clinging to it.
Oh, and happy fucking Half-Naked Thursday, here is a picture of my ass splattered with come. It was taken with Jay’s camera phone after he fucked me during a call with a client. Posting this feels so mundane.
If you've wondered what it would be like to get me on the phone, no need to wonder anymore!
(1.99/min.)
45 Responses for "Existential Crisis, or There is a Cum Shot At the End of This Post"
Perhaps a way around the impasse of wanting to talk about these personal issues yet not wanting it to be known that these are personal issues would be to find and introduce places in the literature where similar issues are treated. I know Phelan has dealt with tension surrounding BDSM in lesbian communities. You could also bring up the issue of how Foucault’s own engagement with BDSM came to bear on his writing.
As for me, I care about what Foucault thinks because he has some very novel and insightful things to say, but more importantly there is something about what he has to say that speaks to and moves me — I suspect it is the same for you.
Jason – You are right that this is definitely a start. However, perhaps I am just too influenced by this idea that the personal is political. Or that there is no more personal. Some day I intend to enter a PhD program (in whatever discipline will have me) as an out kinkster/sex worker/pervert or whatever I am when that time comes. But for now, I bide my time and find places to blow the minds of my classmates. Slowly and methodically ;)
I’ve been turning this one over in my head all day, and I’m still not sure what to say. I was thinking along similar lines when deciding how out we’d be with Pornocracy. Reading this also made me think of the little steps forward I’ve had at work in talking about being in an open relationship, and other times when I’ve said I don’t really talk (nor read) at work because I’d want to talk (and read) about sex and religion, and one would get me fired and the other would just lead to heated arguments. And yeah, I’m in an academic library.
So I’ve settled on not talking about my site with people around me, but not trying to hide it either. If someone finds the site and recognizes me, that’s fine. But I won’t be helping people who already know me find it.
Sorry, I’m rambling, and I still don’t really have a point. Just had me thinking…
Gabe – I think I am feeling the opposite right now. I tell lots of people about what I do but I don’t give them a link unless they really press for it. I don’t want a life where I can be “discovered” by someone at any moment, I’d rather it be out in the open from the start.
I’ve been thinking about this post since I read it this morning.
I think (and it takes one to know one) you might be overthinking this stuff a bit, and you should go with what feels right. More than that, you shouldn’t think of yourself as living in secret or concealing yourself from people – even if you’re not telling the full story, you are speaking from your experience whenever you speak.
Although you can’t take it back once you’re out, you can provide different levels of info in different situations, depending on how safe they feel – or even just what your mood is. In my MA thesis group I kept my trap shut about being sex worker, but tonight while teaching my undergrads I came out about being a sex worker and it was fine.
The process of playing with being vs theorizing in an academic context is terrifying and exhilarating. I hope you get more out of it than stress!
Different disciplines also handle sexual openness differently. For example, Stripping His Way to a Ph.D.
WOW! Didn’t know Jay was related to Peter North.
Sorry, I could not resist the easy joke.
BTW, you have an adorable rump.
Hi Ellie, I have placed a comment on Sex in the Public Square. Michael
Michael – Thanks so much, I’ll respond to your thoughts over there.
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