Friday, May 16, 2008
Pushed and pulled at the call girl convention, I barely had a moment to think about Randy's message.
Jan 10, 2000 | Saturday, November 6
Yesterday, when I arrived at SFO, I turned on my cell phone and checked my voice mail in New York. Saving my business calls for later, I listened right away to Randy's message: "I'm going out of town for a week and I'd sure like to see you before I leave ..." I replayed his voice, remembering our last encounter, the way he undid my blouse -- one excruciating button at a time, silently daring me to move as I got wetter and closer. I was sitting completely still, begging him to continue ... Exquisite daydreaming came to an abrupt end as I entered the hotel lobby.
In my houndstooth cardigan and flat Ferragamo ankle boots, I thought I was dressed for the occasion but now, taking in the other conference attendees, I wasn't so sure. A heavyset girl with jet-black hair sauntered by in a revealing tank top, and I looked closer at her tattoos. Could those be drawings of female genitalia decorating her upper arms?
Then I saw Roxana, looking rather haggard without her TV wig. She wore a bright pink "Sex Working the Millennium" button next to her NYCOT name tag. "Oh, you're here!" she mooed at me, liberating my overnight bag with a generous tug. "Allison was afraid you wouldn't come."
"I'm afraid I did," I said, eyeing a petite green-haired girl in a T-shirt that said SAFE SEX WHORE in large red letters. Her prettiness was marred somewhat by a face full of piercings, huge clumpy boots and a T-shirt.
As Roxana led me to the conference area, we glided past doors covered with enigmatic announcements. "Male Sex Workers: Othered By Our Own Community" in brown magic marker on white paper. On another door, partially closed: "Electronic Activism at 3:00 ... Brothel Burn-Out: OSHA Discussion at 6:00." "Planning Committee: Global Collective Members Only!" said one forbidding sign. We found Allie standing next to a door that promised "Diversity In Our Movement," her hair tied back under a black cap. Her name tag was attached to the front of the cap: "Allison, NYCOT Coordinator" and she wasn't wearing any makeup. Coordinator? Where were the other NYCOT members?
Next to Allison, a gray-haired man with a youthful face was handing out flyers. His name tag -- "Hugh Loebner, NYCOT Supporter" -- was upside-down on his striped Oxford-cloth shirt, and he wore a bolo tie around the collar.
"Nancy! I want you to meet Hugh -- he's an out-of-the-closet john! From New York!" Allie burbled.
Roxana pulled her aside. "What are you doing? If you're going to represent NYCOT at the workshops, you have to attend them! And why is Hugh wearing one of our name tags? I never said he could attach himself to NYCOT." Her New Age benevolence was being seriously tested.
"The Latin Americans won't let Hugh attend the diversity workshop. It's for sex workers only," Allison explained. "We're protesting his exclusion. Male sexuality is part of the erotic mosaic, Roxy."
Hugh greeted me and began to declaim: "'Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you/Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you ...' Walt Whitman. 'To a Common Prostitute.' Apparently," he told me, "the sentiment is not reciprocated."
A harsh Australian voice behind my head interrupted him. "D'you know what the last bit of that sexist poem says? 'And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come./Till then I salute you with a significant look -- ' Bloody bastard! It's the customer's oppressive gaze that Whitman was talking about -- not the human rights of sex workers!" The buxom, blousy Australian brushed her unkempt blonde hair behind her ears, then turned to Allison.
"Physical perfection's oppressive to sex workers! In Melbourne, we've got brothels where prostitutes are fined for not matching their toenails to their fingernail varnish. But I don't suppose you privileged Northern call girls would care about our labor issues ..."
"Molly, meet Nancy -- she's one of our coordinators," Roxana said, giving me a warning squeeze.
"Oh! You're from New York, are you?" Molly assessed me and scribbled something on her brown clipboard. This, I realized, was the girl who had called Allie a Northern oppressor.
"I've heard so much about you," I said, eyeing her name tag: Global Sex Workers Collective.
"And what's your role in NYCOT?" she asked.
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