Let's Get to Know Me

I posted here a few months ago, raging on about something I had gone through. I was angry and confused, I had tried all my normal methods of sense-making and all had failed. People around me whispered or became angry when I would ask questions, prying for any information that might assist my normal "understand and accomodate" process, by which I confidently navigate the world. They wanted to protect me from something. Clients suggested that I skip town or take a vacation. It was bad, whatever it was. They thought I couldn't be redeemed.

They tried to convince me to start a new online identity. I tried, but Renee isn't something I can throw away. Renee is all I have. And you know what? She is more than anyone could have known.

Slowly, I watched public opinion shift as I stood up for myself, and had the balls to return to being myself. They WANTED me to be pathetic or angry, they wanted me to be easily put into a box and dismissed. There was something about me that made me too dangerous an adversary, I suppose. Initially, I touched the soft and vulnerable places of an unstable man, who in reality is one of my most loyal clients and someone that I care for very much. He lashed out when I hurt him.

But why did so many others chime in? Maybe I challenged the status quo too much. Maybe I deviated too far from the stereotypes and they had to make me comprehensible. Maybe I was too human in an industry where I was supposed to be a product. My rules, consent in all things, real connections. Sex workers aren't supposed to be people. Even Gloria Steinem, in her iconic reveal of Playboy's inner culture, remarks that she was treated like a prostitute, as if prostitutes should expect, perhaps deserve, to be treated as subhuman.

I came here to rip into the people who had contributed to the dismantling of my life. I've seen people suggest that I did it myself, but I know better. People harassed me online, clients harassed me in person, people made videos mocking me, added me to Facebook groups created to smear me. They broke into my car and left me notes, printed t-shirts and distributed them at my favorite thrift stores, took videos of me walking in from my driveway. They made fun of my high waisted jeans, my period blood, the effects of my flat iron, my make-up stretched pores, the marks leftover from my pregnancies. They stalked me, harassed me, and ripped me to shreds.

In response to my rant, someone posted a jerking-off GIF. Many people called me nuts. One escort used it as an opportunity to market herself. (Gross, girl. I'd have stood up for you. Just fucking gross.) Outwardly, no one seemed to change their opinion. But as I returned to normal, people popped up to apologize. Old clients began seeing me again. Someone donated $500 to the betterment of my life. I struck a chord. My words became the magnetic field for their moral compass. They knew I was right. After posting a live video of me just happily chatting with whoever showed up for my Facebook live, joking as I do, honoring my viewers as worthwhile, my phone started blowing up like it used to.

The thing is, I am not at all what I have been made out to be. I am not even what I have made myself out to be. The Facebook that my most devout hater refers to (https://www.facebook.com/renee.cox.92102) is a journal. I made it over two years ago, before my husband of six years and I finally moved out of my parents house (poverty) and before I was divorced. I do not use it to advertise, I have never booked a new client from my Facebook page. I use it to work through my own complicated thoughts, impressions, feelings, dysfunctions. I am far, far more honest than many people thing I should be. Conversely, I have had many people reach out since its founding with encouraging words. I helped them somehow, with my authenticity. I helped them understand or accept themselves.

I rant a lot. I can sound angry. And if you have been under the thumb of incompetent, arrogant fools, you ought to be as angry as I sometimes become, for anger is the key to liberation. Pick them apart, assert your worth, your right to your feelings, your superior reason, and do something about it. In reality, I am happy as can be, always quick to smile, quick to forgive, and the first to understand. I have helped numerous people with a place to stay, food to eat, and have asked nothing in return except that they take the time they need to create a life that makes them happy. Not for a moment, but truly. A life that proceeds from their truest self, and because of its authenticity, will endure. Otherwise, they're building castles in the sky, which are doomed by gravity.

I would like another opportunity to become part of this community, for however long I am here. I enjoy what I do very much, and while I am not everyone's cup of tea, my journey has been the best experience of my life. It has given me a sense of worth, by the compliments and by the genuine affection and rapport. It has informed my worldview, helped me inch closer to an answer for my favorite question: What is Man? My favorite men have become mentors, many of them have status I could never dream of and still consider me a peer. In this, they confirm what I have suspected of myself all along, but could not believe. I am strong. I am brilliant. I am love.

I enjoy collecting stories, expanding and challenging my views, and I love sex. Prior to becoming an escort, I was shy and reserved, insecure. My husband of six years would hardly touch me and I was ashamed of my desires. I hated my breasts, my vagina, my dimply thighs, my skin, my entire body. My first few encounters, I refused to remove my bra. For months, I would not remove my panties and I held my panicked breath when a man would insist that I allow him to taste my wetness. I had never experienced climax with another person present, so afraid I was of wanting pleasure, of admitting enjoyment, and of how my vagina might aesthetically compare. And then here I was heralded as "the hottest girl on that site" and praised for my authenticity, my wherewithal, my intelligence. I charmed man after man, they'd call me again within hours, or once a week for countless months. They pulled back, startled by their inappropriate feelings, or pushed forward, hoping to move into a more personal part of my life. They were dazzled and I laughed. I loved them and they loved me and by their love, I loved myself and our bodies swelled with it. We were electric, whoever we were, charged by the psychological foreplay, and end was resisted for the pleasure of the process, or came to soon for it's power. "You always feel so good," or "You could drive a man crazy," "You're gonna make me come already," "I can't help it," and "I don't want to stop." Authentic, biological responses that they could not fake (but can lie about). I saw my beauty by their orgasms and accepted my desires when I saw that I was turned on by theirs. You guys taught me how to love myself.

I have passed this self-acceptance on to many of the men I have seen. People have remarked sincerely that I helped them heal from bad relationships or boughts of low self esteem. A favorite of mine credits me with even more, citing my words as the thing which finally erased the shame of a twenty year old abuse. (If you're curious, I told him that it is silly to think the bad things he'd been through do not define him. I said, they absolutely do, you would be a very different person if your experiences were different, and you owe all that you love about yourself to all that you've hated in your life. And further, your experience is one part of the collective human truth. Take what has hurt you, find that which is universal or common in your pain, and understand the pain of others by it. Own it, tell it, so that the world will accommodate it and consider it when it considers how it ought to organize and conduct itself. By this, you may prevent others from being hurt the same way.) And many women in the industry have been emboldened by my insistence upon my identity. Prior to posting an ad on Adult Search, I checked out the scene to decide how I should market myself. I found that every single woman spoke of her body only, never mentioning her personality at all, and did so in pornographic terms. She was juicy, not bubbly, she had soft lips, not a soft heart. I read through some more a few months ago, after I posted an ad characterizing myself as "the girlfriend" and suddenly women were characterizing themselves by these varied, universal schemas, such as "the debaucherous best friend." Not perfect, but a step toward humanity. Since being made a spectacle and deciding to be myself despite the backlash, women have begun to insist upon being themselves. (I saw one of the girls in the AS Body Rub section at the Dollar Tree. I did not recognize her as an escort at first, only as a girl of average build with quite movements and remarkable, gentle eyes. She was buying air freshener and the cashier followed a test of the product with attention-getting praise, at which she shrank. But her eyes did not spark with fear or resentment or annoyance or conceit. They did not change at all. I knew her as an escort only when I saw her photos and recognized those eyes.) This authenticity will attract men who are truly attracted to them, and with whom they will likely connect. They will therefore not feel robbed or drained by the industry, and the men who they entertain will finally find what they have been seeking here all along. A real connection, a break from the loneliness, and great sex. Maybe more. Maybe she will help him heal.

I know it's an arrogant thing to say, or even as a thought, to entertain, but I have changed the sex industry. I have made all of us human.

Be human with me.

5127977951

(For what it's worth, I assure you that the negative reviews are either maliciously inaccurate, or a somewhat benign attempt of an insecure man to maintain his self esteem. My vagina is fine, sex can be more or less enjoyable based on attraction or activation, and the tightness of a woman's vagina varies throughout her menstrual cycle. Further, the yoni is elastic, stretching to accommodate the penetrating body, and relaxing around it to maximize pleasure, whatever the size. It swells with arousal, becoming long and supple and tight, or becomes hollow and shallow and as asexual as a flaccid penis without stimulation.

I am not crazy, I am not on drugs, and my feet are not dirty. I'm just not quite what you've come to expect.)