A Tale of Entitlement

A former lover/client/friend (it's very complicated) who reads my blog wanted me to make a post about one of our experiences together. I said I'd think about it. But now I've decided to do it, though this post will not be what he had in mind. I will refer to him as C.

C and I have known each other for years, decades even. About seven years ago we fucked for the first time and until a couple months ago hadn't stopped. I was still living at home at the time on the other side of the city, so our opportunities to get together and have mind-blowing sex were infrequent. We continued to fuck even after he started dating the woman who later became his wife because our relationship was definitely friends with benefits. My friends always asked why I never officially dated C and I said I was simply uninterested in him as a boyfriend. I continue to be. Beyond that is the fact that, well, he's my brother's best friends and the last thing I would want is to split my brother's loyalty. Honestly, I'm not sure I would win; my brother can be a right little jackass.

Then C announced that he'd be marrying his girlfriend. Okay fine. More than that, however, he was going to be monogamous. I laughed heartily. Apparently, I knew him better than he was pretending to know himself. C insisted that he was going to 'honor' his marriage and be monogamous in the old conventional way. He wanted to have one last romp but I refused for several reasons. I did inform him that if he were to approach me for sex after he got married it was going to cost him. Cash. Up front. He agreed but felt that this arrangement would be a moot point.

About a month and a half after his destination wedding in Mexico, the point was no longer moot. I asked if he remembered the requirements I made in this eventuality. He did and at the time claimed he didn't have a problem with it. So I officially became a paid mistress for the first time in my life. Yup, a whore. I have absolutely no problem with that word when I apply it to myself or other women or men who likewise embrace the term. I went from being a sex work rights activist to actually being a sex worker, albeit low-key and informal (and I'm working on formalizing being a sex worker). But quite honestly, I definitely charged about 50% less than what I should have charged because C was a friend. Was.

But then came the inevitable, "I feel this arrangement might be compromising our friendship" claim from C. Because all the years of fucking didn't do that before? I asked if it is because of the money. He said no, but it is because I charge him. Performing a feat of mental gymnastics that should make me the All-Around Champion, I realized that C felt entitled to me and my very valuable sex. I was supposed to be freely available, in more ways than one, at all times.

This is in direct contradiction to the popular belief people have about sex work, even by some sex workers themselves, that charging for sex somehow establishes male entitlement to the sexual female body carte blanche. I'm sure there are men out there for whom that holds true, but most men who feel so entitled decidedly DO NOT expect to pay. They want sex to be given on demand. Like any other spoiled child, they don't want to do chores for an allowance, they just want the money! Period. Simply for existing. So too do those men expect sex from women, simply because they are attracted to said woman and think she should spend time with him on that fact alone. Despite this rather repulsive blight on the male species, I do not think all men are like this. But as usual, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

With that C and I seem to have unofficially ended our interactions on all levels. This is fine as the arrangement wasn't working out for me anymore or for him. I would occasionally see him if I went bar-hopping with the braying jackasses, that is my brother and his friends, but I stomached more than enough of them this summer. C texted me last weekend, drunkenly I'm sure, saying he had $500. I said, okay, did you want to come over or something. Never got back to me. I can only imagine and assume, probably correctly, what prompted that text.

The one nice gesture he did was to lend me money for my schoolbooks, which I will be paying back when I actually find a job. Because I make good on my promises. That is where my honor lies.