3 a.m.

[to be accompanied by:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4KXUr9JVng]

He holds me, kisses my neck, rubs my shoulders, strokes my wet chest. I rest my head on his shoulder, eyes closed. I kicks my legs out, padding wide feet against a cold tile wall. I open and close bright pink headed toes. 

“They're talking to each other.”

“What?”

“My toes.” I say. I laugh. I flicker my toes back and forth, back and forth. 

“They're five-headed aliens and they're talking to each other.”

  He rubs my neck. “What are they talking about.”

“Oh, I don't know. Whatever aliens talk about.” I lean my head back into his shoulder and slip down, laughing until I spit up water with words: “You are so nice.”

“Really, why am I nice?”

 I laugh and slide up his chest. I turn around, kiss him. 

"You're listening to me talking to my toes.”

"You know, when I read some of the stuff written by so-called 'feminist allies,' it feels like they are fighting over our bodies. It's like prostitutes are just these bodies who are somehow connected to something bad and evil or something good and on the cutting edge of revolution. They just turn us into symbols."

-Sandy, former teenage sex worker, in Wendy Chapkis' Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor.

"Cheap is when you fuck them just to shut them up.

Cheap is when you do it because they are worth so much.

Cheap is when you suck them till your jaws hurt so much they won't say you're uptight.

Cheap is when you do it to keep them home at night.

Cheap is when you want less than pleasure, a baby, or a hundred dollars.

Cheap is when you do it for security.

Cheap is what you are before you learn to say no.

Cheap is when you do it to gain approval, friendship, love.

--Scarlot Harlot, San Fransisco

"Prostitutes perceive trick unworthiness differently than society at large. They are less likely to judge either the sexuality or the commerciality of tricks and more likely to judge trick hypocrisy. One ex-prostitute said "I left The Life when I realized the very customers who were my friend in private were my enemies in public." ... In short, prostitutes consider betrayal to be unworthy, they consider corruption to be unworthy, and they consider dishonesty to be unworthy."

"Since no rational person would willingly be consumed as a sexual object, prostitution is necessarily a form of exploitation: its existence depends on the role social inequality plays in ensuring that the socially more powerful have access to sexual objects of their choice." 

-Scott Anderson

"47% of women reported the fantasy of ‘‘seeing themselves as a striptease dancer, harem girl, or other performer,’’ and 50% had fantasized about ‘‘delighting many men’’ and being an ‘‘irresistibly sexy female.’’ Out of a list of 16 fantasies,
the latter had the fifth highest mean frequency per month (5.3)."

-Leading researcher in heterosexual female desire, Marta Meana 

"...virtually all prostitution, phone sex, nude dancing, etc. is unwanted sexual activity by definition, since these workers require payment."

-Martha Becker

"The two primary sexual stimuli are partner advances (the strongest and most available sexual stimulus, especially for women without the spontaneous desire to seek out stimuli) or sexual activity initially agreed to for nonsexual reasons. [in other words, incentives, such as money, the desire for intimacy and cuddling, and the desire for attention cannot just be constructed as motivations for unwanted sex but rather as part of the erotic process"

Marta Meana 

Fantasy...

...Although not enough
data are available to explain the existence of these fantasies,
one of the more persuasive explanations for the
‘‘being overpowered’’ fantasy is that it arouses by virtue
of its assertion of the woman’s irresistibility (Critelli &
Bivona, 2008). Another instance of desirability without
implication of surrender featured prominently in
Strassberg and Lockerd’s (1998) study: 47% of women
reported the fantasy of ‘‘seeing themselves as a striptease
dancer, harem girl, or other performer,’’ and 50% had
fantasized about ‘‘delighting many men’’ and being an
‘‘irresistibly sexy female.’’ Out of a list of 16 fantasies,
the latter had the fifth highest mean frequency per
month (5.3).