Dear Sasha, My lover and I have had a wonderful relationship the past several years. We’ve communicated well and pushed the boundaries of our sexuality—exhibitionism, name-calling, BDSM-light, spitting, tagging—mostly within the confines of hotel rooms. She has come upon strained financial times recently so I’ve let my male provider instinct take over. I am footing the entire bill in cash until we return to our prior Dutch treat arrangement. Not so deep inside my twisted mind—I’m sure you saw this coming—I’ve begun to have fantasies of chipping in to help her. Yes, I’d make her my own private prostitute.
She’s a fine lady from anywhere suburbia and we’ve role-played master and servant enough so that’s natural for us, but adding a material dimension to our play is completely different. I can’t gauge what her reaction might be, nor do I feel comfortable suggesting it to her because she might feel insulted and that could have lasting repercussions. I’ve heard of sex-for-hire situations transitioning into full-blown romances or even marriages, but I worry that it might be a slippery slope emotionally to go the other direction. Any advice?
—John in California
Dear John,
So horking, heckling and possibly even cheating (since your trysts take place primarily in hotel rooms and you use cash, one might assume they are devious in nature) are fine but things become uncertain when finances are introduced? The most vexingly ironic part is that you are clearly an open-minded and expressive guy, and you’re not alone in feeling this is an unthinkable taboo. Every so often, I like to quote Murray Davis, author of the book Smut: “Sex is the only human activity in which the professional has lower status than the amateur.”
(And hey readers, in case you, like me, were wondering what John means by tagging, I e-mailed him and asked for an explanation. He wrote back that it was when you write possessive or humiliating words on your partner’s body. How Riot Grrrl, I thought, and immediately pictured myself staggering around onstage at the Château du Sexe in 1993 with a tiara tangled in my bleached-out hair and “Whore” scrawled on my leg.)
Back to you, John: I imagine it doesn’t help to know that, like your paramour, many professional sex workers are from anywhere suburbia. In fact, one of Canada’s most famous dominatrixes, Terri Jean Bedford, became known in the media for her “Bondage Bungalow.” You’re not looking for reassuring similarities; I’m going to guess you’re concerned because in spite of the great connection, the relationship is illicit and this might be the thing that really drives that fact home unpleasantly. If your lover is already sleeping with an unavailable man, money might seem like a stinging, passive aggressive implication of her status. Even if you don’t realize it, effectively you are asking how to make a whore of a woman who, by some standard, already is one.
Ladies are clambering to be faux hos these days—take note of the pole-dancing studio on every street corner—but the reality here is a bit tricky. I think you’re right to proceed with some caution. As research, you might be interested in the book Paying For It, edited by Greta Christina.
Dear Sasha, I’m in my first week of practising the fertility awareness method and would like a speculum with which to view my cervix and other such wonders. Is there a place that might provide me with the simplest of tools with which to self-examine?
—Speculum Searcher
Dear Searcher,
Joy Toyz (4200 St-Laurent, #415) just began stocking plastic speculums for $3.95. You can also order them online. Good For Her (www.goodforher.com) carries plastic and metal speculums, though as one employee says about the metal ones (which haven’t exactly been flying off the shelves), “I think women are a little freaked out by the Dead Ringers element.” That, and the plastic ones are $3 versus almost $20 for the metal. Who can blame a woman for being thrifty about vaginal products when so many of them are obscenely overpriced? Get yourself a hand mirror and a flashlight and have a gander at the giant pink cocktail olive that is your cervix.
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