Ester Amy Fischer: Killing Me Softly with Healthcare: How I Was Nearly "Terminated" By My Health Insurance Company
Posted using ShareThis
Friday, October 2, 2009
Ester Amy Fischer: Killing Me Softly with Healthcare: How I Was Nearly "Terminated" By My Health Insurance Company
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Ester Amy Fischer: My Experience as a Craigslist Hooker: A Requiem for Cragislist Erotic Services
Sunday, May 31, 2009
On "outing" myself and relinquishing control
I realized it was going to have to happen one day. When I started writing American Courtesan. It was originally a memoir, but became a novel. Choosing to fictionalize my experiences had to do with a desire to shelter myself. I am mostly a very candid person, candid with friends and even sometimes acquaintances. But these are people who know me in the flesh and in so knowing can see all the nuances of my character. Every person has these nuances. The inner circle keeps them alive.
The thought of becoming a public persona horrifies me. And the thought of going public and becoming known for something I did a while ago, something of which I’m not terribly proud, but also not terribly ashamed is intimidating. I have a fear of exposing myself to the unseen, unknown. I have a fear of being judged and pigeon-holed. I think mostly a fear of being misunderstood. No, that isn’t what I meant, that isn’t what I meant at all.
Last night, I said to a friend, “All women are really screwed over, I am just more honest about it.”
I have been thinking a lot about the earliest and most salient moments of my life when I realized that my body was not just a vehicle for getting me around and expressing myself, but also a sexualized object which provokes unsolicited reactions from others just by virtue of its existence.
I was five, maybe only four years old. My father was working in the yard with his shirt off. My wonderful father: his skinny funnel chest, his red chest hair, pulling out weeds. I wanted to be like him, so I took my shirt off too and started helping him. It was a game and I wanted to be part of it.
But my father looked annoyed. What had I done?
“Put your shirt back on,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not right for girls to go around without their shirts.”
And suddenly I knew that I was different, that in some way, my body did not really belong to me and from then on never really would.
Was choosing to exchange my sexuality for money a convoluted way of trying to take back my body? I could never again reach the pure state where my skin is there only to give me sensation, where my legs are there only to get me around, where my butt is there only for me to sit on. It would always be something else. It would always signify something I could not control. Was I trying to take back control?
And now, by going public with my private experiences, am I relinquishing that control? Is that why I am so frightened?
The thought of becoming a public persona horrifies me. And the thought of going public and becoming known for something I did a while ago, something of which I’m not terribly proud, but also not terribly ashamed is intimidating. I have a fear of exposing myself to the unseen, unknown. I have a fear of being judged and pigeon-holed. I think mostly a fear of being misunderstood. No, that isn’t what I meant, that isn’t what I meant at all.
Last night, I said to a friend, “All women are really screwed over, I am just more honest about it.”
I have been thinking a lot about the earliest and most salient moments of my life when I realized that my body was not just a vehicle for getting me around and expressing myself, but also a sexualized object which provokes unsolicited reactions from others just by virtue of its existence.
I was five, maybe only four years old. My father was working in the yard with his shirt off. My wonderful father: his skinny funnel chest, his red chest hair, pulling out weeds. I wanted to be like him, so I took my shirt off too and started helping him. It was a game and I wanted to be part of it.
But my father looked annoyed. What had I done?
“Put your shirt back on,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s not right for girls to go around without their shirts.”
And suddenly I knew that I was different, that in some way, my body did not really belong to me and from then on never really would.
Was choosing to exchange my sexuality for money a convoluted way of trying to take back my body? I could never again reach the pure state where my skin is there only to give me sensation, where my legs are there only to get me around, where my butt is there only for me to sit on. It would always be something else. It would always signify something I could not control. Was I trying to take back control?
And now, by going public with my private experiences, am I relinquishing that control? Is that why I am so frightened?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Requiem for Craigslist Erotic Services
Requiem for Cragislist Erotic Services
On Wed May 13, Craigslist announced that it will shut down its erotic services section, marking the end of an era. With the negative publicity generated by the Craigslist Killer and a stampede of outraged attorney generals calling for its demise, Craigslist Erotic Services will be no more. This is a requiem. And a plea for a rational discourse about sex work.
I know it seems strange to eulogize what was basically an online red light district, but in my experience there was a brief moment when Craigslist Erotic Services transformed both the meaning and the means of being a sex worker. There one could open a virtual lemonade stand which operated according to self-imposed rules and regulations. Anonymity was almost guaranteed. Craigslist erotic services made sex work accessible to people who would never have considered doing it otherwise. I was one of those people.
On Wed May 13, Craigslist announced that it will shut down its erotic services section, marking the end of an era. With the negative publicity generated by the Craigslist Killer and a stampede of outraged attorney generals calling for its demise, Craigslist Erotic Services will be no more. This is a requiem. And a plea for a rational discourse about sex work.
I know it seems strange to eulogize what was basically an online red light district, but in my experience there was a brief moment when Craigslist Erotic Services transformed both the meaning and the means of being a sex worker. There one could open a virtual lemonade stand which operated according to self-imposed rules and regulations. Anonymity was almost guaranteed. Craigslist erotic services made sex work accessible to people who would never have considered doing it otherwise. I was one of those people.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Sex Work and Bohemia
I have been thinking about how sex work has traditionally held different meaning in bohemia than in the dominant culture. This probably dates back to Belle Epoque France when the concept of bohemia came into being. Bohemians tend to come from the bourgeoisie and have all the attendant grooming though they have either rejected its values or fallen from its grace.
Long before pre-marital sex was generally accepted, bohemians rejected marriage as being the only legitimate location where sexual intimacy could occur.
Female artists and writers have also historically had a much more difficult time "making it" than their male counterparts.
Sex work has often been a necessary part of the bohemian economy.
When I started having sex with men for money, my artist friends were neither scandalized nor judgmental Many of them praised me for my bravery.
As a girl who had grown up in a very bourgeois home and then rejected it, I was very attractive to men of my erstwhile class, though I did not live in their world.
Long before pre-marital sex was generally accepted, bohemians rejected marriage as being the only legitimate location where sexual intimacy could occur.
Female artists and writers have also historically had a much more difficult time "making it" than their male counterparts.
Sex work has often been a necessary part of the bohemian economy.
When I started having sex with men for money, my artist friends were neither scandalized nor judgmental Many of them praised me for my bravery.
As a girl who had grown up in a very bourgeois home and then rejected it, I was very attractive to men of my erstwhile class, though I did not live in their world.
Monday, March 30, 2009
If it’s not for love...
One of the most unexpected things that happened to me during my tenure as a craigslist "courtesan" was the discovery that so many women either wanted to or contemplated doing the same thing.
Back in the day (before you had to register, provide credit card information, and pay for ads -- another topic altogether) craigslist erotic services had been the perfect vehicle for anonymity and independence. Though this had always been a fantasy of mine, what enabled me to cross the line between being a woman who wouldn’t, to one who would and in fact, did take money for sex, was the internet's way of keeping my secret and letting me create myself on my own terms.
It was the wild, wild West. And I think it served that purpose for the clients as well. There were men I met who I believe might never have considered paying for sex had it not been so available and easy. It really was nothing more than the bastard half-sibling of internet dating. The clients were so astoundingly "normal." Guys who—if you'd met them in different situations—you'd take home to meet your mother, really.
But even though craigslist is a less than perfect venue today, I still I meet women who confide their untoward desires to me. Why just the other night, I met a woman at a party. We’d started talking about the economy and her financial woes, the difficulties of trying to establish herself in a new career. I told her that I’d reached a point in my life where I only wanted to be working on my writing. I’d do extremely commercial work, anything. "I’m a total whore," I’d told her.
And then she’d told me that she’d actually thought of doing it. She told me that she’d been answering ads on craigslist. And then I told her my secret.
She told me that it couldn’t be any worse than the dates she’d been on lately and the way men treated her, she may as well get paid. I remembered thinking that same thought: I might as well get paid for this. If it’s not for love, it may as well be for money.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
To begin, begin.
I never really imagined I would take money for sex, but in the sage words of my best friend’s boyfriend, “Everything in capitalist society is a commodity, why shouldn’t sex be also?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
