Life

Therapy Breakthrough

Typical. Just as I was about to discontinue seeing my psychotherapist, we get to the good stuff. Sex and my early sexual experiences; my relationship with my Mother.

The truth is I had put off discussing sex as my therapist is Muslim. Stupid I know, prejudiced too, but I felt weird bringing it up and opted to talk about everything else instead… until she brought it up.

I had been unhappy with my boyfriend’s living arrangement and my anger levels were disturbing. After a few weeks of probing this situation, she said, “But doesn’t it affect your sex life?”

I already liked her, little though she says – it makes what she does say all the more poignant – and from then I found a whole new level of appreciation for her. No one else had said that. If she had been Western I have no doubt that I would have been talking about sex with her from the off. But then, how to spot the breakthrough?

She was so right. Sex is very important to me, perhaps my strongest currency. It wasn’t that we weren’t having sex; I will always find a way! But that our truest intimacy was compromised. Our ability to get to know each other in every way that we would, without interference – that felt in question. No amount of communal aspirations could make up for that. It is a base that we needed and are establishing now for ourselves, and for which I am most grateful.

The pressing difficulties of the present out of the way, we were free (my therapist and I) to delve naturally into the past. That my Mother had resented my burgeoning sexuality when puberty struck, had given me many issues. It felt good to cry, and I knew we are only just beginning.

Image

Pictures of me by Sue from The Pastel Society, 18/2/12

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Guidelines for Joining the Sex Industry

Ever since I started talking freely about my past in the sex industry people have asked me ‘how do they get into it?’

I think if you want to get into the sex industry, you just do it. You shouldn’t need to think about it too much; it’s very much a doing thing.

It helps if you don’t mind the idea of casual sex with strangers. In fact any aversion to that will be a definite hindrance and I would give the sex industry a miss. You could try juggling, hot air ballooning or just wash dishes. It depends what you want to get out of it.

When I got involved, to be fair, I did think about it a bit. Gramp complained to Mum that I looked like a prostitute, and she’d made a prediction concerning my in turns insane/whorish then star-studded career to be. Guess I went with it. And given my wardrobe and bent for casual, mindless sex, it seemed most natural AND lucrative. Being dumped horrendously by my first love kick started the proceedings; from there I developed an obsession for going home with strange men.

You might want a special website or business cards these days. That did not occur to me in 1995. I just went with the flow. And being young and pretty daft I didn’t mind being employed by assholes. I thought it might be character forming. And you get to meet more people, and there’s less organising, when the truly important matters in life are about dancing and getting wasted on Saturday night to a very select soundtrack. I wanted to live!

But your own business is another matter entirely. Do you masquerade as something legal or does that even matter? What can you advertise and where, and who do you want to attract? What if you don’t know anyone in the industry? I believe if you really want it you’ll find it.

If it turns out you actually are looking for a few decent lovers and a new income, escorting may not be the answer. It comes down to selling sex, so you must remember not to dress that up too much. You might be lucky and get some fun clients. But they are not the same as lovers.

A good exception is when a woman becomes a state employed sex healer, like for wounded ex-soldiers. In this capacity a bond may be formed. She may teach him how to appreciate sex.

So if you wanted to go about selling some sexual healing, it may be more rewarding. Of course you’d have to be pretty confident about what you were selling. You could promote yourself as available for mending broken hearts. You could mention that due to the intensity of your work, you can only manage a few customers at a time, and they must be carefully selected by you so there is a good match. That way you may guarantee quality and integrity. You could suggest examples of people you think you could or would like to heal. Maybe they would be ill or disabled, older, have suffered some catastrophe or been at war. Doesn’t sound like a lucrative market, if a very appreciative one. But you never know. If it makes you happy, there will be a way I say. My recommendation for discovering yourself, who you want to be involved with when doing this work, and why, is to write freely from your heart and try to describe as best you can what you want to express, the role you want to fill, the whole purpose.

If it is a political statement, that alone may not carry enough weight. If it’s emotional, get to the bottom of it. But most of all if it does seem to be your niche, try to describe what you would get from and give to, how you might experience your encounters in this domain. Words of this order, not too fancy either, may be what you put on your site to let people know what you’re about. It just helps to know clearly, have a picture of it working well.

I would love to hear from people with more experience of this than me. There is so much I don’t know.

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Meeting With Freedom

When the doctor calls in the middle of the night, come to the hospital, this could be it. We don’t know if she’ll make it, but we need to know from you what you would like us to do if – if the life in her is not worth – if when she opens her eyes there is nothing there. They have the power and they need to know, have you thought about it? Yes because it happens each time – different doctors, sometimes different hospital, but each time she is under they have to ask.

Sometimes my instincts check in advance, they are not feeling adrenaline, I am sure this time will pass. Often I am pulled in to the brink on the edge of the rollercoaster seat. By the bedside crying, and appreciating time in the relatives’ suite, because that is the most meaningful conversations the rest of the family ever has with Dad. The family drama; and when the doctor calls, I know now that he is hoping. This time could be his meeting with freedom. He has discussed her wishes with her and the answer is to switch off from a life not worth the trouble. Meanwhile they continue, we keep on.

At the front of The Royal Festival Hall, Lucy and I find a table and furnish it with my large painted Spirited Bodies sign. We discuss the press release, skirting over our brushings with mental health. I was supposed to prepare the meeting we are about to have with our brand new SB models. We’ll wing it; well it’s not like we haven’t done it before. The hardest thing I find is putting myself in the position of someone new to the whole business. Remembering what it was like before nudity was normal, and even then it wasn’t that new to me. And tuning myself to a sensitive mode that is ready for newbies both anxious and nervous, as well as those in it for the craic, or because they just love what we’re doing. I’m a tiny bit nervous but it’s going to be fun.

They arrive one by one, with warm hand shakes and smiles, chairs gradually accumulated from across the room. They find me familiar, I have been emailing them individually, and it’s like we know each other, except now they’re all here I don’t know who each one is. It’s ok. We have important informations to impart and light-hearted anecdotes of bodily fluids and anti-sexual encounters. We – Lucy and I – are on familiar territory, and we pick up after each other. I try to feel what the interested faces are hoping to glean, and they ask about the photographs (for London Drawing) and how to choose poses. It goes well and I am high and full of love afterwards. That’s why we do it, because of them (and us). I love it when they are happy. The artists make another level of content, but for me it’s for the models first. They make me feel both humble and worthy. They are on edge with excitement to meet themselves in a space that is about just being, and being drawn. And they will be together, as in a drama, complimenting and interacting with each other, creating a story where there are bodies. We will be guiding them, but now already these that we have met, know more what to expect. Their minds will imagine and start to build the scene of the next event. The seeds are gestating in time for a rich bloom.

Drawing Blood

I had taken my boyfriend home. He was sick. But at least he made it to the club. He remembers the good bits – getting pissed with old friends at home, me showing him round, dancing, kissing on the dance floor.

I remember him on the pavement “Just fuck off”, people helped us to bundle him into a taxi. Vomit. Bed.

I was still awake, only 3am and I’d not seen any of my friends. Wasted. I wanted to go back, ate some cold food and got on my bike. Anger/sadness coursing through me, reaching an outlet.

I did find them. Fucked but definitely my friends. Offered me drugs, I’m not interested. Tequila yes.

My fluffy old ex from so long ago I can’t stop stroking him. They are high on MDMA and talk affectionately.

Dancing to the old tunes, between the lazers. Old friends around this is what I came for.

Getting a round of shots with 2 of the core I say I don’t miss the drugs, but I miss jacking up. Do either of them still do it? No. They remember it well.

Later I fear planting a seed. We’re getting older, no need to push the limits. And I think about it. The rush was addictive, seductive; the process ritualistic. What I miss is not the high though really – I am drug free and happy with other ways now. It was how we bonded like a family. Literally making our bloods visible briefly, repeatedly. Sharing something vulnerable about us and our solution. Mental anarchy in a basement. Never make friends like that again, so I really want to keep hold of these, but now I think to introduce new activities to share. Something with an element of danger or a dinner party.

The Art of Magic

Chaosphere; symbol of chaos magic

The first step to a magical state of mind, according to a Chaos magician’s handbook, is to still the body. It suggests finding a comfortable position and at first attempting motionlessness for 5 minutes, which is not easy when executed completely. One is then to build up gradually to half hour periods of stillness, practising daily. Should any unexpected occasions for stillness arise in one’s day to day life, then it is advisable to take advantage, if you want to maximise your potential as a chaos magician.

The joker in me thinks chaos magic people could do a recruitment drive among life models; most of us have definitely mastered step 1, and are probably well into the next levels too, although not being conscious of this might make a difference.

Breathing has to slow right down and get really deep. Tick.

Not-thinking: this is what I understand meditation to be; regarding one’s tempest of a mind and hauling it in, not wandering off with the pull of any divergent tangent. When successful this leads to trance, and you know you’ve risen above it all when you feel the glow in your third eye and in the crown of your head. It’s a warm tingle, very pleasant, and the lightness and euphoria I get enable me to transcend discomfort of the pose, because unlike chaos magicians, I’ve cut off my circulation, got a crick in my neck and all my weight is on my right heal. Do I get extra points? No, I’m way behind on the theory!

Also when in a trance, thoughts do still come up, but they all seem to make me laugh, except usually it just induces a smile. Occasionally I do crack up in hysterics much to the artists’ bewilderment; generally I can’t explain the joke or it’s just too dirty… I mean I like my job, and just them knowing that what my comical mind has yielded is off the menu says enough.

There is another state of hyper sensation I get; stronger emotions but with an extra awareness of them, like I’m watching them. So I might get on a sad one, may even draw a tear, but it’s like it’s from so deep inside, there’s an awesome release, so that the sadness is accompanied by elation.

That brings me to another of the chaos magic themes: emotions and their opposites. Apparently the root of every emotion is in its opposite, and a wheel is drawn: sex and death, love and hate, fear and desire (to begin with, it gets more complex too.)

Object concentration, as part of achieving a magical state of mind (from which who knows what is possible) means the fixed gaze during motionlessness. In my work this is most common and necessary whilst modelling for portrait. A fixed point in one’s vision must be picked, and held for hours, days, weeks on end. It is hard to stop the mind from distorting what one sees, but after a while, I have found, of looking thus in the same direction, everything looks different anyway, like you are seeing all that you could have missed with a more casual look. I practise this too when life modelling as it is part of what brings about the high I enjoy. All my worries vanish – what to do with that guy who pretends he doesn’t want to date me but when we meet that’s what it feels like… will other people apart from my boyfriend like my new script, do my friends still like me after I didn’t turn up to… is my brother mad at me!

During half term I didn’t have a lot of work and Aaron asked if my powers would diminish with hardly anyone worshipping me! I have been thinking this is a great way to think of my job, and love that Aaron sees it this way. Instead of thinking, ‘Oh no I’ve got to get up for work’, I’m like ‘Gonna go to the temple to be worshipped’!

Crazy Cousin

10 years ago I heard through my family, that a second cousin of mine had been sectioned in a mental hospital; he was only 18 and I didn’t know him. I did know what his Mother was like however, and my ears pricked up. I suspected immediately that rather than insane, he had simply been misunderstood. His Mother was very over-protective and any normal teenager might be deemed crazy by the reactive backlash her overbearing may produce.

I paid him a visit and felt confirmed of my theory. He had been driven to some minor violence and locked away. Oh and experimented with hard drugs, which were now more available to him than when he lived at home. He was of course drugged up on prescription pills, and had a new set of friends on the ward, who were troublesome enough to help keep him sane. We became firm friends; I knew I could fill a unique role where other relatives would fail. Having gone off the rails myself I knew that if I hadn’t had the freedom I’d had in those formative years, I could have ended up in the scary place he was. As it was I was able to find the best possible place and friends with which to share that experimental time. My crazy cousin was no more mad than we had been, except that a duality of a loving/repelling relationship with his Mother blocked his potential to find commune elsewhere. In this light my own Mother’s seeming hatred of me was a blessing; she’d had no problem freeing me.

Growing up became a big ordeal for my cousin; there were several episodes in hospital, rounds of medication, sheltered housing, therapy. Other people in the family didn’t know what to make of him, but I remained constant. He grew enormous for a few years on the drugs, and let his hair and his beard get longer and wilder. His room was a state of filth with quantities of porn, piled, scattered. But he did learn to cook and sometimes accommodated my non meat-eating ways, even if he threw a steak on his own plate to balance the vegetable overload.

He was shy of women as girlfriends, but comfortable as their friend. Most of the people in his family were women, and when he was housed with lots of people I saw many girls come to him for counsel. When he got better his sisters invited him to stay for long periods.

Confidence takes such a long time to establish, and normal work has eluded him. He is much better now though and been off the meds for some years. He looked like a new man when last we met in the Summer, much slimmed down and clean-shaven. He was doing some voluntary work and about to begin a course in Autumn. He wanted to take me out for a meal, he has ever been grateful to have a kindred spirit to talk to. I remember nearly 3 years ago, he came to see a show I performed with a friend, and in the opening scene, I climbed out of a suitcase, naked. I had not warned anyone prior to performance of the nudity, and it was my cousin who decided never to come to one of my show’s again! At least he always asks now if there will be me naked in the show and on finding there will be he declines invitation. I guess it just feels wrong to see one’s family naked for some.

My cousin took a picture of me in Highgate Wood

I met my cousin when I was in the middle of a long relationship with an Italian, and had become somewhat estranged from friends of my wilder youth. My cousin was not dissimilar to some of the men I used to know, and I guess being away from them made me warm to him the more; he bridged a gap, and did not arouse Massimo’s jealousy! I grew very fond of my cousin and he laid down a lifelong foundation in me for a love of bears – men who are big and gentle, kind and strong.

A New Man & a Kitten

It is said we attract the people we do in our lives for a reason; they are right for that time. Today I modelled for a gentleman, alone. It is a while since I modelled privately for an artist – most who seek models are men, and navigating the politics of what they really want, even if never expect to get, is bothersome.

A good life model friend of mine refers to this ‘gentleman’ artist as ‘improbably sexy’. What she means is he has exceptionally well defined features, is classically good looking, but very awkward with it. He hides himself and his work in an aura of uncertain dishevelment. When she heard I would model for him, she wanted me to find out his mystery; what lies beneath his stammering, unfinished sentences?

I was never worried about this appointment; he seems the opposite of the troubled bravado so apparent in several male artists seeking inspiration from their naked models. He may be awkward but he has a kind demeanour and is as considerate as the demanding constraints of his class allow, where I met him before.

Blackheath’s studio receives brilliant light in the morning, he says it reminds him of his first studio at art school in Edinburgh. Yes, how bright the light there. His usual reticence shrouds his easel, but without the sapping attentions of his class, he does open up, voluntarily. I am still a little sleepy and grateful to be lying down, but during breaks he asks of my education and origin. I hear of his family and the difficulty of choosing schools, if there is a choice.

I want to ask more about his work, but the fact of his moving the easel to face the wall every time I am up or he leaves the room does beg a softly softly approach. I cannot even see him as he works because he is stationed behind me. My guess is he is a very sensual, sensitive man who best attracts what he wants by being unassuming. As my friend says, normally men who are that good looking have a confident manner with women. But if this man was to display grand charm or seduce his class and models, they might not trust him so well. I might have made my excuses, and a showier muse may have taken him up.

I still trust him; he is one of the few with that ability to make me feel at ease when I am naked being myself. And there is an unsatisfied curiosity because he is not someone you get to know in a morning. It has been my wish to meet more of such men, so thank you world!

Here is another creature I recently attracted;

This little kitty refused to be turned away as I arrived home one day, so I let her come in to play. She toyed with drapery and nosed at mouse hide-outs, then slept peacefully till I had to put her out. I can’t imagine she isn’t loved by someone, but I hope she comes to visit again.

Taking Time For Ourselves

At the first meditation meeting of the Women on Fire, most of us were tentative about speaking up, coming forward. Judith had some salient advice; many of us, whether by nature or nurture who knows, feel drawn to helping others a great deal. All too often to the detriment of looking after ourselves. I don’t know if this message came to Judith from spirit, as they say in shamanic circles, or if she just felt it intuitively. I felt its resonance.

I am not sure if people around me in my life would especially notice whether I take enough time for myself. Not having children, other dependents or a regular full time job means I am more likely to be taking time for me. The way I reflect on Judith’s advice, is to consider more, how many years I have given over to trying to nourish the impossible. In other words, relationships with men which were mighty troublesome.

I am so happy and grateful to be in more favourable circumstance now. It has perhaps been in trying to establish where my priorities lie in friendship that I may have felt myself spreading a little thin. It is needs part of the process of finding out how different friendships fit.

The regular meetings with the writers workshop in the theatre are already providing valuable structure. I have to present an idea, pitch a project and I am unused to doing this in such a group. Whether I come up with the right project or not, I know I won’t be satisfied unless I have given myself the appropriate amount of quiet and private time in order to realise whatever ideas I may.

At the Women on Fire meeting I tell them I am there because I want to root myself more, so that I may build my work more effectively. I am in good company.

Uneven In Uxbridge

It took over 2 hours to get here, felt like the middle of nowhere. When a bus moves here, it travels far in a short time. Miss your stop means a lot of backtracking.

It felt provincial – in the end I stopped asking bus people directions as they couldn’t agree, well at least they replied. Looked in Google Map instead.

Finally down a country lane I find the school. Must sign in, and then a special runner takes me to art.

I am their first life model ever! So appreciation is not short. They used to trek to the nearby university, but cuts have forced a new trend.

I am given plenty biscuits for my trouble and allowed to feel relaxed. But I know this is the wrong thing really. A student from Hong Kong who walks me to my bus stop enquires if I am a dancer. I explain what is physical theatre, again. She asks if I have a show and I am positive. Back to my real work.

For All the Men (& Women) I Want to Roll around with

Slow burning anger fades, calm of breezy sunshine

Like a hot weight in my forehead, yesterday it felt

She had not done anything wrong really,

Just years of ancient pain arising

A healthy feeling pushes me forwards, guides me to my goals

image from Spirited Bodies

Anita & Steve

Wench

Erik & Wench

I want to roll around with you

If you never had a crush on me, now’s your chance