A Whore's Manifesto: An Anthology of Writing and Artwork by Sex Workers
104
A Whore's Manifesto: An Anthology of Writing and Artwork by Sex Workers
104eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781944934903 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Thornapple Press |
| Publication date: | 10/18/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 104 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
naked on the internet
Vivienne L'Crave
i was naked on the internet before i had an email address i won't get into all of that,
but i will tell you this —
i didn't have breasts yet.
and even if he asked,
though he didn't ask —
my yes could not would not have meant yes.
i used to wear all of my clothes at once.
i wanted all of the space between me and your gaze to be filled with layers.
not like a suit of armor.
like a fucking minefield.
tensor bandage, under bra.
bra under camisole, under t-shirt.
under sweater under sweater under sweater.
and hunched all of the way over all of the way down.
curving my spine until every vertebrae spiked out of my back like barbed wire.
if you were going to touch me again,
it was going to leave a mark on you this time motherfucker.
sometime after then but before right now, we will call it the beginning i fell in love with fashion, with music, with movement through these things i learned how to relate to the world,
to make sense of the world to turn up the volume and just let the world burn when i needed it to.
the layers fell away and i got to know my very own skin.
it had grown thick with fear and calloused with anger and pale without purpose and it did not look like me anymore.
it was peeling back and falling off and something was shining underneath.
peeking out from the purge it was my body.
it took some time for me to learn to navigate this — vessel of flesh and corners and curves and wounds and wonder i wore my breasts like bullseyes and my hips like bullets.
i softened my skin,
i unfolded my shoulders, i raised my chin to the sky.
the sun drenched my flesh and i was golden again,
broken open again,
and i drank it all in i unwrapped myself from this shroud of shame that bound me to more guilt than any cadaver could carry.
i grieved for the innocence i lost.
and the years i spent blaming this body for what happened to this body before my lips learned to bend around the word
NO.
and then I danced.
right there on that bar top.
decorated in leather stretched over lace red lips, fringe-hung hips hints of skin soaked in sin and a smile wide across my face.
i didn't know that power could grow back once it had been cut off some people find freedom in string and some find it in cloth mine was right here hidden underneath.
when i found it i waved it high above my head and took pictures for the internet for everyone to see not for validation but a declaration you cannot,
will not place shame on me my naked skin is not the patriarchy my worth is not measured by my lack of nudity my value is not calculated by adding or subtracting clothing my power is in my command for consent and respect and i demand that you show it to me.
i am naked on the internet and you don't get to decide what that means.
Baseball Metaphors
Zoey Morris
1.
I don't know a single thing about baseball except that it's the Great American Pastime.
I figure, according to past experience,
bringing down a varnished wooden stick over and over and over again onto the base of a young girl's skull until she can't remember her name is also a true American Favorite.
2.
I don't know why:
I sold pictures of my legs
spreading like
taking a (baseball bat)
Maybe. Just maybe. I figured:
If I would be consumed /
spat out / stomped through
(tobacco plant) I might as well
charge a handling fee and offer
a delicately fingered personal touch.
3.
I charge cold cash as I record myself sitting on the edge of my grandma's tub,
fingers slamming
(baseball bat)
flimsily in and out of my razor-burned pussy.
I moan a song called
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game"
but I'm not going to the field and I sound more like a whore.
4.
Dark lip: angry woman leaving marks on customer men I bite Blue knee: sore woman my favorite color is aging bruises Leg hair: messy woman I wish my legs belonged to me Baseball hat: dyke woman pretends to love (baseball)
(Baseball bat): hit me harder through the television screen
5.
Intended audience is the only thing differentiating the breaking of a body from a ballgame for skinny little boys You have two choices in this sort of situation.
You can either kick as the (team) holds you down they'll (homerun) you.
or you can quickly chug (cracker jacks).
either way the (batter)
will (homerun)
all over you.
6.
I fall asleep to the sound of a man (batter).
the back of his
(jersey) says
[REDACTED]
and he is
(warming up)
to my voice,
through the cable noise of the phone from across the country.
he wants to Slam he wants to Swing he wants to Bang his (baseball bat)
20 bucks strapped in the pink halter of my bra
(uniform)
7.
I hand the (baseball bat) to him.
I hand the (baseball bat) to her.
I hand the (baseball bat) to them.
I hand the (baseball bat) to you.
ORIGIN STORY FOR THE DAY SHE BECAME PROUD
Liv McKee
tar spokesmen plea tame pity sex hack floorboards swallow oil absent tongue endure religion piper wept quiver hail bravado nest
[or]
i made my way across the floorboards and they did not creak. no pipers wept.
i left him there: business casual
white-collar crime
the spokesmen —
it's not pity sex if you're paid for it.
you may say
that girl, swallow oil that girl, absent tongue that girl, a plea
but if i may,
i've endured religion far too long to be tame,
and i'm good at this. i left him there
made a deposit weeded the marigolds
ate a sandwich afternoon permission to be full, not fill.
some days hack me in two, but a job is a job and i am neither purity nor plunder,
and i still quiver,
still wax
wane
hail with chosen lovers.
i spit out the work day,
slippery oil. spill. when i speak it is a bite embrace. i reset, plush.
so if i may,
because indeed i may when i leave him there he does not leave tar on me.
the floorboards do not creak.
i do not remember the spokesmen. it is bright. bravado in my veins. this too, a nest.
THEY SAY A REGULAR PRACTICE OF AMBIDEXTERITY PREVENTS DEGENERATIVE BRAIN DISEASE
Liv McKee
so i brush my teeth with my left hand step first with my left foot backstroke first with my left arm, a windmill
post outcall with an aggressive client who pinned me to the wall with too much tongue told me he loved me and asked where i think our *tension* comes from
after i take myself out to dinner place the chopsticks in my left hand two taps try to rewire the pathways in my arm,
cerebrum to fingertip like some sort of baptism some spell of protection a reset, a clearing,
a hope, even
though i must eat quite slowly to do so though the rice grain spills everywhere
DID YOU THINK WE WOULDN'T COME FOR YOU
for Stormy Daniels
Liv McKee
her cry for help the bullhorn of their hunt,
watch how she takes stock of your laughter makes a dollar off your fear,
your respectability politics,
your husband's computer click watch her rise watch her take back the narrative of breaking news:
sex worker pornstar files lawsuit against the 45th
her image now cliffjump her name in the slandermouth of every boy who learned to fuck from her photo every woman with internalized misogyny for a tongue-cage every congressman who has sought services
here's to Stormy, doing more for the "resistance"
than the DNC ever did,
sex worker political sex worker unpraised deity sex worker unpraised deity
sex worker unpraised deity
Vows of Virginity
Robin Gow
last night st. lucy came to my door & knocked three times.
the mother the daughter
& the holy bedpost that i use as a rosary.
running out of veneration,
she sat at my desk chair,
placing each scented candle of her crown on the end table.
rose & cream & patchouli & lavender.
i asked her what she was doing here so far from december
& she put a finger to my mouth.
her eyes looking up from the golden plate, unblinking. white grape.
for broken vows
& pagan boys we never loved.
for the stained glass on the brothel walls we made a curtain. she told me of bundles of wood
& fire that only women know.
she danced her fingers over flame to demonstrate.
i stuck out my tongue,
the taste of her ember as sweet wine. eyeball in her palm she fed me,
yes both eyes, off the plate.
juice down my neck,
across my collar bones.
she asked for my confessions,
turning them into pastries on her plate. tea cakes
& macaroons. the powdered sugar on our lips.
we will take this all to the catacombs.
Diocletian, a statue outside the window. he's dead now,
we know. but a man is always a statue left somewhere.
i asked her if her eyes would grow back
& already there was another pair.
blue & lucid.
Temples of Venus
Robin Gow
st. afra smacked, pounding nails into wood
& i sleepwalked to where she stood in the yard;
her fishnet stockings, halo snapped into headband.
about a year ago i started touching myself again,
first just a fist overtop underwear,
mortar pestle me, i ground into sand, spilled
out my window. she's rebuilding the temples of venus like the one where she used to be a hierodule.
a sacred sex slicer, a shrine shaking
slut like me. she says she can't believe she ever sealed off her clit for god, for christ.
laughing, we make sacrifices to her,
the love goddess, chopping my dildos sideways & pouring lubes into basins,
oh holy mother water. no ivory columns here,
just a treehouse. a ladder dangling that i climb with my lover. we make sacred our queer bodies. i show her how
i touch myself & st. afra dresses us in fishnets, roses blooming where we once had genitals, the scent of evergreen,
the altar where our blood comes out white.
myrtle's pollen pucker our throats, she prays for us, that we find pleasure there.
Is Wednesday Your Real Name?
J. Random
The kind of girl who slips right through your fingers taking her time — fast enough she goes down like regret, slow enough you're used to the taste —
curvy and hard to get over, not sweet like the climax-collapse at week's end, more satisfying than the alarm clock prospect of doing it all again
— middle of the road —
like her namesake,
so that when you're inside her,
you don't know if you're coming or going.
When Things Can't Fit
Davy Le Jones Nguyen
This is the kind of body that does not seem terribly feminine,
particularly for somebody that believes in speaking it into something more than a question mark.
This is the body that daytimes As an occasional barista or boy or ghost,
but that is because it can be a lazy body,
one that forgets to shave,
forgets to not wear baggy clothes because I would rather be
swimming in myself
than put something together
from a bunch of things I don't always understand.
I'm wishing instead for something more like an oversized god,
struggling to recognize itself,
struggling to not become the kind of judge that condemned Sisyphus to labor,
or Prometheus to suffer every day just like I would.
Rather, I wish for the body that is more like the kind of god who is just tired.
This is the kind of body that
struggles to present itself,
because to present something this ramshackle
would be hoping that your body can become a gift,
become something you can hand over with a smile on
your face.
But it seems like this asking for the world,
this requesting of a body that betrays you less than a stranger seems outlandish.
Because that is all I really want for myself.
For a world I can call my own,
and by world I mean,
a body,
and by body I mean something that doesn't fit like a begrudging hand-me-down.
It can be the kind of thing to be grateful for,
grateful for having a body that does not require any sort of unnecessary grieving,
a body that doesn't bleed out from itself like a child's screaming,
scraped across the pavement underneath some shoe.
Rather,
it is the kind of body that picks itself up every morning,
remembers it can dance,
however poorly, to that one song.
Sometimes life is like this and you learn to sing in the silence,
dance through the pain,
a reminder that every hand-clap can become some sort of hymnal embrace,
becomes the kind of chasm that closes,
the kind of close that you only know when your teeth fit together,
the kind of body that learns to loan itself out even if not all of it is returned and
becomes the fiercest kind of laughter.
Hunting for Boise
Davy Le Jones Nguyen
It seems that many people have to hunt for god,
and whenever they did,
it was mostly at night.
Fighting was always easier in the dark anyway.
I saw him first on Parkcenter Boulevard,
just before midnight standing alone,
tall with tight hair made fine and smooth enough for holding.
His face was softer than the soles of his feet,
and people called him pretty,
even if it was a sullen beauty,
and it only bothered him sometimes.
He preferred to have features more like hammered steel,
more thin and sharp,
like razor blades hidden away in bowls of Halloween candy.
He pulled a bottle of whiskey from his purse,
he shuddered when he drank from it,
maybe he giggled too,
the way a child who understands how easily they can become ragdolled would giggle.
He offers the bottle and says,
doesn't burn your throat much.
Besides, if it did, then maybe people would listen.
I take a long pull and shudder as well.
I can't help myself.
The bottle slips back into the bag and as quickly as he takes a drink, he says,
one to make the body forget.
two to make the forgetting feel more like my body.
Before long his phone rings and he's off,
answering an invitation to fly to heaven,
hoping this will bring him one step closer to actually leaving.
God is mourning now,
unable to speak in clarity,
and whenever she does it is only in left-footed hymnals.
I wonder if there is song enough for him,
as he goes off,
wanting that body of shrapnel to become louder
than it already is.
I wonder,
if after all of this, there is still a home to go to,
or if there is still a chance for children to meet an embrace meant for a god.
I realize that's all they actually have.
He meets me in an hour,
at Wiseguy's,
like he said he would,
he's smiling at me a little bit,
he looks at a reflection of himself as if everything far was suddenly close,
he says his name as if his body has just become a sudden choir.
As we eat I notice his bag again,
I ask him what he keeps in there,
only things that children would regret leaving behind.
Sex Work as Self-Immolation
Anonymous
It is as if I am a voyeur in my own body Eavesdropping on grotesque mewls and exaggerated moans —
The slap of skin against skin, friction facilitated by sweat-slicked flesh,
Resonating in the empty air —
As I flick my tongue over cracked lips To allow for more noises I didn't know I could make to escape them
... who are you? Why are you doing this?
But the version of myself writhing on a stranger's bed Only responds by arching her back up, up,
As bedsheets spill through curled fingers, clenched fists Maybe I'm just going through the motions, muscle memory Or maybe the feeling of my mind, exiting through my pores,
Dissolving into thin air Is more familiar than the sex itself
Maybe I find comfort in my slow descent Down, down, until I am nothing So that when I hit the bottom it won't hurt Clearly it didn't hurt, you idiot, you didn't even notice
A certain sense of solace in the absence of real intimacy In being used and discarded and in climbing off naked bodies,
Hauling myself onto the next one
Maybe, just maybe,/like a hungry little whore/ I fucking get off on that But truth be told, I don't remember the last orgasm that wasn't faked Or the last time that wasn't desperate, pleading, animalistic Gasping oh my god yes, fuck me instead of bury me
So I give entry and I observe, a spectacle and a spectator all at once In the hopes that one day I'll get lucky and it'll kill me,
Numb my brain until I'm so far gone that none of it will matter,
For it is so much easier to break completely ...
... than it is to repair what will never be whole again
IN THE VIDEO YOU TOOK OF US FUCKING, THERE'S A MOMENT WHEN BOTH OF OUR GENDER TATTOOS ARE VISIBLE AND THAT'S HOW I KNOW JOY IS ITS OWN GODVive L'oiseau
last night we counted backwards and realized at the same time in each our own childhoods men's hands ate us before we knew we looked like food / last night i bullied you into my mouth and held you like a high note sliced thru an empty church / last night i deer-flinched in the bright light and there is my back dipped into your hands / there is our leg hair singing / this isn't about any of that / i mean i want to hear how your name sounds on every day / i want to drive you to the doctor / i want to photograph awkwardly with you / i want to live too close to you to write about distance / i think we don't fight because we don't want to / i think we both don't believe we deserve it
To the One Who Told Me "Fuck off"
Christopher
To the one who told me "Fuck off,"
for any, whatever reason,
I won't be a target.
And I have to believe there's a soul in there somewhere but it ain't up to me to dig it out.
So I'll dig the ocean breathe the afternoon park as close to the railing as I can give my last fries to the gulls watch the wind push the waves in and not waste another poem on you.
Excerpted from "A Whore's Manifesto"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Kay Kassirer.
Excerpted by permission of Thorntree Press, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments,
Foreword,
naked on the internet,
Goddess,
Baseball Metaphors,
origin story for the day she became proud,
they say a regular practice of ambidexterity prevents degenerative brain disease,
DID YOU THINK WE WOULDN'T COME FOR YOU,
Vows of Virginity,
Temples of Venus,
Is Wednesday Your Real Name?,
When Things Can't Fit,
Hunting for Boise,
Sex Work as Self-Immolation,
IN THE VIDEO YOU TOOK OF US FUCKING, THERE'S A MOMENT WHEN BOTH OF OUR GENDER TATTOOS ARE VISIBLE AND THAT'S HOW I KNOW JOY IS ITS OWN GOD,
To the One Who Told Me "Fuck off",
AFTER ANIMORPHS,
Trespassers Beware,
apocalypse glam,
The Siren Just Wants to Go Home Alone,
Late Nights & Lap Dances,
The Day Shift,
T4M,
Ridden,
The Retiree,
Needs,
seducing god,
is there any way to say i love you when i don't,
Thigh Boy,
This is Our Prayer,
SMOKE WITH ME,
Margaretha,
Music to Watch Boys to,
Fine China,
Television Heaven,
Gods & Monsters,
EBONY PRETENDS NOT TO UNDERSTAND SAMBO (EVEN THOUGH SHE LIVES WITH THE PLANTER'S WIFE),
EBONY EXPOUNDS ON CULTURAL SHIFTS REGARDING PERCEPTIONS OF BEAUTY AND FEMALE BODY IMAGE AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE CASTING, BLOCKING, & PIVOTAL,
PLOT DEVELOPMENTS FOR PORN ACTRESSES,
CHARLIE COMPLIMENTS EBONY,
AT HOME, EBONY PREFERS FISTING,
PYRENE*,
Reluctance,
Latex & Lube,
Work Follows Me Home,
TERMINAL,
CABARET,
Sweetie,
Daddy's Girl,
An Ode to Subculture Club,
One Day,
A Whore's Prayer,
About the Editor,
Contributors,