I guess

I was harsh in my last post but what I'm reading is shocking. Among the different classes of whores, life is very different. The call girls and independents live the best, with relative freedom, although it's not all a day at the beach. But what I was reading about streetwalkers and massage parlor workers is one devastating story after another. Arrest, police brutality, rape, well, the list goes on, over and over. These are just regular people trying to live, maybe they have kids, pets. That humanity can be so brutal, evil really, is a rude awakening. I never loved the police, but I thought we had something of a justice system. It's an uphill battle, but you have to win your freedom.

Also I got upset. I feel bad, I flaked out on Garrett and missed the time I was supposed to meet him. He was really mad at me, I guess for good reason, but it's still so awful to be screamed at, and I remember why I vowed never to be in another relationship again. It's one damnation to slavery after another. I have been in relationships since my teens and I know the story; it is pretty much always that way, that is what it turns into. Even my ex said, most men don't respect women. He would talk about how men he knew would interrupt, talk over or dismiss what their wives and girlfriends were saying. We always would blame ourselves, consider ourselves failures. If only I hadn't gone out after midnight, worn that skirt, said what I said, ect ect.

Women should be able to walk around any time day or night, dressed any way, and not fear assault or harassment. It is that way in countries like Germany and Egypt, and these aren't feminist-oriented societies. In Egypt religion makes women second class, and those horrid tales of female genital mutilation.....do happen (though not to everyone), and women are often forced into marriage....yet there's far less rape and sexual harassment there and women are virtually never raped or attacked by strangers and can walk around at any time of day or night. So.....if it's like that there it should be that way here. In Germany prostitution is legal and it's also basically safe.

I've been feeling really sad. February is a gruesome month, it's been hell. Someone told me February is the month of evil spirits. Not that it's all bad. But getting yelled at, the disastrous audition a few weeks ago, illness, taxes and feeling always like this horrible human being, a deviant, and living in fear....in my women's group they talked about how fear is a method of control; keeping people in a state of constant uncertainty. Garrett would get angry at me for my lateness (never admitting that he's also been late) but Simone de Beauvoir wrote something about how women are late as a form of revenge; that it's making up for the long wait that's her life.

So I know, there are many advocacy groups out there for sex workers, but this women in my group said how all these "exploited" women were not the ones who started the revolution. If one is worn out just trying to survive on the most fundamental level, there's hardly any energy left over to fight for change. Is this true? Most women activists I know do work, at shitty jobs often. But the constant demands of work impede real progress; and energy is spent on getting the basic necessities like food and shelter. Still, I've known women who do have freedom and leisure and don't become activists.