« Dacia vs. The Machine | Main | Dildo terrorism »
The Whys
September 02, 2005
This week after almost two months off, I made a triumphant (?) return to sex work, with a foot fetish session on Tuesday and a three naked photo shoots scattered throughout the week. I had a really excellent conversation with my foot fetish client; it made for a nice welcome-back. Truth be told, I usually have really intriguing conversations with my clients – it’s interesting to learn a bit about the person on the other side of this thing we’re doing.
The client was a total newcomer to the world of being a consumer of erotic services, so he had a lot of questions for me. He was really candid in sharing his thoughts and fantasies, but like a lot of newcomers, he also wanted to know things like “why am I like this?” and “what do your customers normally want?” I never give a straight answer to the second question – partly because there isn’t necessarily a set of behaviors/desires I deem normal and because I want them to feel free to ask for what they want, not what they think I expect.
As far as the first question goes, I’ve read accounts of “how I got this way” on a variety of fetish sites – often the writers trace their fetish to experiences in childhood. A good example of this is a leg and stocking fetishist who says that he loves legs and heels because as a small child he was eye-level with his mom’s legs and footwear all the time (does that mean all the Muppet Babies grew up to be leg fetishists?). While I don’t doubt that these stories ring true for the people who tell them, I think they’re a little silly. Who cares where it came from – if your fetish gives you pleasure, rock on with your bad self. Why the need to find out where this thing came from? The sad answer to that is probably that because fetishes are viewed as deviant (and BAD), if you can figure out what happened to make you that way, you can separate the fetish from yourself – you aren’t really a bad person, it’s just that this thing happened.
I know it seems a little crazy for me, the overthinker, to say that some things are best left to exist as they are, but the thing is – some things don’t have a definite meaning. Its a little nature, a little nurture, and a lot of chance that makes people the way they are. I know that’s a no-good explanation for people who feel they need to know why they’re a perv, but I don’t think it’s always useful to live looking backwards, endlessly examining childhood to figure this shit out (though there are definitely other things worth pondering extensively). Go forth, and pervify!
Posted by Dacia at September 2, 2005 09:35 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wakingvixen.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/366
Comments
That last sentance should be said at the end of a workshop (and other random points in life). And the kink gods said to the perverts: Go forth and pervify!
Posted by: Lioness at September 2, 2005 12:23 PM
Hello Dacia, welcome back, good to see you back in the swing of things. I agree with your statement of things are the way they are sometimes because that is just how they are. “Different strokes for different folks”. I think fetishes are much more accepted and understood today. The bad pervs, i believe are where people take their perversions to far, ie child molesters, rapists. How do we explain to them that their perversions can not “go forth and pervify”? It is obvious that jail isn’t a deterent.
Posted by: christopher at September 2, 2005 10:16 PM
I know that when I’m in a new situation I often ask what others do. It gives me ideas and also establishes where the limits are — gives me sign posts in a land I’ve never navagated before. It could be that part of the reason the fellow was there wasn’t so much for the specific act as the the experience. I only say this because I’m projecting: I’ve never paid for sex but I’m totally fascinated by the idea and I can easily see that I might accidentally ask that question!
Posted by: Gordon at September 2, 2005 10:55 PM
Please tell me those shoots were in a HEATED studio! I stepped out this morning and BRRRRRRR!
-G
Posted by: Garrison Steelle at September 3, 2005 08:43 AM
Nope, it wasn’t heated, but then its still beautiful and warm here in NYC. Warm enough to get naked on a Manhattan rooftop actually. But then, that’s not saying much, coming from the girl who got naked outside on the first of January this year.
Posted by: Dacia at September 3, 2005 11:07 AM
Perhaps having a fetish is like being adopted: some have to find their birth parents, others have absolutely no desire to look beyond the family they were raised in.
Posted by: Wendy at September 3, 2005 07:31 PM
Great post. I think the best counseling session I ever had was me spilling my guts about things I had done and wanted to do and how much I was freaking myself out and the counselor saying, totally calm: I know you’re scared but you haven’t said anything that freaks me out. Desire overflows in us, it makes us human. Try not to damage other people. It’s okay.
To me, that’s the most useful psychology.
Posted by: Gander at September 4, 2005 12:21 AM
I think that many sex workers end up playing the role of the counselor insofar as our sessions often are based around giving the client permission to express and own his desires. Often, the client is paying for that space for non-judgmental acceptance more than the actual acts.
Posted by: Dacia at September 4, 2005 12:32 AM
