I can’t believe it’s already April! I’m sure many of you have noticed that I haven’t been posting my weekly Musings—I hope you have missed me! While I have wanted to, I have been overwhelmed with other gigs that I didn’t expect or anticipate picking up, and certainly not all at once.

After an almost 4-year hiatus, I re-started my Pittsburgh City Paper column again! It is rebranded as “Pillow Talk with Jessie Sage,” and comes out every Thursday. I have also committed to writing one article a month for Tryst’s Blog. And excitedly, I began a new podcast: When We’re Not Hustling: Sex Workers Talking About Everything But, that includes a YouTube Channel with a weekly YouTube exclusive After Party Show (where my producer Emily Foster and I debrief the episodes — it’s so much fun!). Lastly, I revamped my Patreon.

Given this demanding workload, I won’t be able to maintain my Musings as they were, but I do want to use this medium to share the work I am doing. Welcome to the new version of Musings, where I share what I’m writing, talking about, and excited for! And, I know this is out of order but – I’m excited to be writing to you again! I’ve missed you!

What I’m Writing About:

I’ve picked up writing for the Pittsburgh City Paper again with a weekly column called “Pillow Talk with Jessie Sage”. I’ve written seven articles so far, and it’s difficult to choose a favorite. I loved the piece on aging that featured an interview porn veteran Seska (and my producer Emily!), but my adventures in Shibari also stand out. When I look at all of them together, though, I think my favorite is my most recent one, where I share the intimate details of my struggles with polyamory, caregiving, and eldest daughter syndrome.

I’ve also re-joined the Tryst team and have been writing for their blog. Like the Pittsburgh City Paper, my articles focus on aspects of sex and sex work that often go unnoticed. In February, I published one of my personal favorites of mine: an interview with my mom. We healed past wounds, explored our respective journies with feminism, and (most importantly, I think) opened up space for hope and belonging to all of the parents and children who have had ruptured relationships because of differing attitudes toward sex work.

What I’m Talking About:

My new podcast, When We’re Not Hustling and its companion YouTube show The Afterparty launched at the beginning of this year. I interview sex workers about all the interesting things they do when they’re not working. Though I expected it to be fun, I didn’t know what else to expect from it. It’s turned into a weekly exploration of some of the most interesting people and ideas, and every episode leaves me changed for the better.

It’s impossible to choose a favorite episode, but talking to my mom will always be very special. Since I already talked about the article I wrote I’ll just tell you that you can listen to the conversation that led to that article on the podcast. I also took so much away from my conversation with Seska who was the first guest we’ve had on who’s older than me. Her interview about aging and sexuality (and the companion article in the City Paper) ended up starting conversations that I’m still having with my friends, my partner, and my co-workers.

Check out all the episodes everywhere you get your podcasts or on our YouTube Channel here.

What I’m Excited About:

Along with a future WWNH Podcast guest Madeline Blair (her episode will drop on April 8, 2024), I’ve written a chapter for the upcoming book: The Holy Hour: An Anthology of Sex Work, Magic, and the Divine on Working Girls Press (you can order your copy using the above link!). The release party is in NYC on Tuesday, April 30 at the Bowery Poetry Club. This is your formal invitation to join me to celebrate the release of this incredible anthology that explores sexuality, magic, sex work, and queerness.

Booking & Availability:

Due to circumstances out of my control, I had to cancel my Erie trip scheduled for the beginning of April. I am, however, very excited for the other trips I have planned for this month!

April 12-14: Columbus, OH

April 27-May 1: New York, NY

In Columbus, I have two lovely duo partners whom I will be offering sessions with: Mia Grey & Faye Holloway. I have previously worked with both providers and they are amazing.

Other than those dates, I will be taking bookings in Pittsburgh, in between plunking away at the keys and recording into a mic.

Also, don’t forget that I’m offering handwritten postcards and letters.

xo

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

Coming down from the holidays and several big writing and podcasting projects, I didn’t have time for reading this week—and quite frankly, was a little burnt out! I did, however, take my 18-year-old son—who was home for the holidays—on a movie date. We saw the remake of The Color Purple.

The movie was remarkable in many ways. The costuming was fantastic, the musical numbers vibrant and spectacular, and the dialogue witty. It was fun to watch; we both enjoyed ourselves.

The next morning at the breakfast table, though, my son told me he was surprised when his friend told him that she’d read the book and that it’s sad. Having not read the book, he saw the film as joyful. When I pointed out that the underlying themes of the movie were domestic violence, incest, generational trauma, the impacts of American slavery and British imperialism, and more, he said, “But they broke out in song.”

It would be easy to write off his response as coming from a young person who has not directly experienced any of the tougher themes of the story. And as his mom, I took the moment as an opportunity to talk to him about their gravity. But his observation did bring up an important question: Was there something off about the tone of the movie? There is great joy in the lives of the characters, to be sure, but does the format of the musical jump too quickly to the joy at the expense of depth?

What I’m Thinking About:

The thing that is interesting about this version of The Color Purple is that the plot itself is true to Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-winning novel. We learn early in the film that Celie, the protagonist, is impregnated twice by the man she believed to be her father, only to have those babies sold right after their birth. We also learn that she is shortly thereafter married off to an abusive older man who beats her and separates her from her sister, the only person she is truly bonded with. We watch as her step daughter-in-law is unjustly imprisoned for years, and upon release, exploited by the very same white woman who had her put away.

Those are the facts of their lives. We see them. But do we feel them, or do they get glossed over? In a review for NPR, Aisha Harris has similar concerns but points out that she struggles to criticize a film for not dramatizing Black pain. “Admittedly, it feels odd and even a little wrong to criticize a film for minimizing the trauma against Black women that’s shown on screen.” After all, it certainly isn’t Black women’s responsibility to lay their pain bare so that my white teenage son can have some perspective. And yet, Harris points out that there is a balance to be struck. She observes, “But exploitation and exploration are not the same, and with little exception, Bazawule and his screenwriter Marcus Gardley seem reluctant to sit too long in the discomforting facets of this story, choosing instead to over-index on ‘joy’.”

Harris points out that this is surely in part a corrective to some of the criticism that the 1985 movie received. She quotes Taraji P. Henson who says, “The first movie missed culturally. We don’t wallow in the muck … We laugh, we sing, we go to church, we dance, we celebrate, we fight for joy…” This is valid.

I do not feel like it’s my place to have an opinion on how Black pain is depicted or processed in this movie. These are not my stories to tell. What I am left with, instead, is the reminder that life (and art) is complex. There is no joy without sorrow, and perhaps letting this tension exist in all its forms is all we can do.

What I’m Excited About:

This Thursday to Sunday (January 11-14) I’ll be in New York City. I’ll get to meet some new friends and spend time with old ones, and I’ll get to see a few Broadway shows to boot! I’m very much looking forward to it! If you’re in New York and you’d like to see me while I’m there, you know how to find me!

Additionally, I’m very excited to announce that I started a new podcast! When We’re Not Hustling: Sex Workers Talking About Everything But is a podcast that explores the lives of sex workers beyond the fantasy. The first episode dropped on New Years Day, and a new one will drop every other Monday. Our first guest was trans porn star  Trip Richards, and he and I discussed the possibility of talking about our lives outside our work. Please check it out!

Booking & Availability:

I have filled out my travel schedule for the next several months! I’ll be in Pittsburgh between these dates!

Jan 11-14: New York City, NY

Jan 23-28: Las Vegas, NV

Feb 2-4: Buffalo, NY

March 22-24: Buffalo, NY

April 4-7: Columbus, OH

April 25-27: New York City, NY

If you don’t see me in your city and you’d like to, please don’t hesitate to reach out to ask me about Fly Me To You options.

Also, don’t forget that I’m offering handwritten postcards and letters.

xo

As those of you who have been following my Musings know, I set out in early 2022 to use this forum to share the things that matter to me: the words I loved, the thoughts that shaped me, and the events that excited me.

I started this project with the belief that sharing these intimate readings and reflections would give you insight into who I am and what moves me. What I didn’t expect—but am so grateful for—is that this project has given back to me in kind: it has brought me thoughtful and generous clients and friends who have shared their passions, books, poems, and so much more with me!

In the last couple of weeks, I have been inspired to turn this project into a podcast to extend it to those who prefer to consume media via audio. I have been slowly working on the backlog of episodes. As of now, I have 6 episodes up and will continue to add more. Please subscribe to Cybele Rain’s Musings wherever you get your podcasts!

Here is an end-of-the-year wrap-up. All of the books and poems and movies and articles that have shaped my Musings in 2023. I hope you’ve enjoyed these, and I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings!

You always know where to find me!

NOVELS

Fredrick Backman: A Man Called Ove

David Santos Donaldson: Greenland

Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War

NON-FICTION

Barbara Brown Taylor: Learning to Walk in the Dark 

Melissa Febos: Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative 

Katherine May: Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

MEMOIRS

Chris Belcher: Pretty Baby

Amy Bloom: In Love: A Memoir of Love & Loss

Mike Birbiglia: The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad

Melissa Febos: Whip Smart: The True Story of a Secret Life

Brittany Hailer: Animal You’ll Surely Become

Saeed Jones: How We Fight For Our Lives 

Maggie Smith: You Could Make This Place Beautiful

ANTHOLOGIES

Working Girl Press: The Holy Hour: An Anthology of Sex Work, Magic & The Divine 

POETRY COLLECTIONS

Kai Cheng Thom: Falling Back in Love With Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls

Maggie Smith: Goldenrod

Erin Taylor: Bimboland 

ARTICLES/ESSAYS

Nick Anderson, Washington Post, “After Uproar, WVU to Keep Some Foreign Language Classes, But Not All”

Evan Greer: The Daily Beast, “What to Fix Big Tech? Stop Ignoring Sex Workers”

Natalie Hepburn: Tryst Blog, “Digesting ‘The Menu’: An Inversion of Dated Tropes & The Golden Rule”

Merrit Kennedy, NPR, “Craigslist Shuts Down Personals Section After Congress Passes Bill on Trafficking”

Jennifer A. Kingson: Axios, “West Virginia’s Foreign Language Cuts Could Be a ‘Blueprint’ for Higher Ed Attacks”

Moses Moon: Peepshow Magazine, “Face-to-Face, Street-Based, or in Cyberspace—We Are All Prostitutes” 

Adi Robertson: The Verge, “Internet Sex Trafficking Law FOSTA-SESTA Is Almost Never Used, Says Government Report”

Jessie Sage: Sex Work CEO Blog, “Who Are the Clients of Sex Workers—And Why Does It Matter?”

Jessie Sage: Tryst Blog,  “The Cost of Coming Out as a Sex Worker”

Jessie Sage: Jessie Sage Blog, “What Can Phone Sex Operators Tell Us About Men & Masculinity?”

Jack Shafer: Politico, “So What If a Candidate Livestreamed Sex Acts with Her Husband?”

Leah Shefoe, Huffington Post, “I Was a Virgin at 59. I Chose a Controversial Way to Have Sex—And I Couldn’t Be Happier”

PODCASTS

Ira Glass: This American Life

Cybele Rain: Musings

RubyLynne: Granny Panty Podcast

Jessie Sage & PJ Patella-Rey: Sex Industry Book Club, Dr. Chris Belcher’s Pretty Baby

Jessie Sage & PJ Patella-Rey: Peepshow Podcast 

Krista Tippett: On Being, Baratunde Thurston: How to Be a Social Creative 

MOVIES

A Man Called Otto 

The Menu

POSTCARDS

Cybele Rain: Cybele Rain’s Handmade Postcards 

BOOKING

Cybele Rain: Book

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

xo,

Cybele

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

The last book that I shared with you was written in the form of letters; specifically, letters written back and forth between two lovers, over a vast expanse of time and space.

This week, I once again found myself reading a book of letters; this time, letters written by a Chinese transgender woman to the people—and parts of herself—that she struggles with. These letters are “to the dead people, to exes, to prostitutes and johns.” They are, in her words, “love letters to weirdos and monsters, to transphobes and racists, to everyone and everything I have ever had trouble holding in my heart.”

In the introduction to Falling Back in Love With Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls, Kai Cheng Thom describes the impetus for the book as an attempt to heal the wounds that sit at the center of her relationships (to self, others, and the world).

“i wrote as though I might be casting a spell or changing a religious litany,” she says. “i wrote as though poetry and prayer might be the same thing, as if words might reconnect me with what i once considered my unshakable relationship with the human divine. i wrote to summon the language that might help me fall back in love with being human.”

What I’m Thinking About:

So many of her letters moved me to tears, especially those that overlapped with my own experiences, pain, and longings. There are letters to sex workers, letters to clients, and even a letter to/about Jesus. The one that arrested me for days, though, was the letter she wrote “to the compulsive caregivers.”

It is worth quoting the opening of the letter in full (after all, it was this opening that sent me out of a coffee shop and into the privacy of my car where I digested her words while crying uncontrollably).

this one’s for the kids who took the role of team mom on the playground while everyone else as playing superhero and supermodel. the sweet little girls and sensitive little boys and tender little ones whose genders were still to be determined, still in flux, still contested territory. the ones who knew, with mysterious skill, exactly how to be what everyone else needed them to be. who knew in their bones how to be a mommy, a daddy, a caregiver of any gender, even though—or perhaps because—the big people at home who were supposed to didn’t.

I have often talked about the fact that I was a young mom—I had my first child right after I turned 24. What I don’t often talk about is that I am the oldest daughter of four, born into a family marked by mental illness, alcoholism and drug addiction, poverty, and insecure housing. I didn’t become a mom at 24, I became one much younger when I was pushed into mothering myself and my siblings because those who were supposed to couldn’t.

Cheng Thom writes this letter to the mommies/daddies/caregivers-of-any-gender of the playground, and to the ones who grew up to turn caretaking into a career (as we do…). She says, “For the ones who grew up to be social workers and nurses and psychologists and any other flavor of professional helper, because they were already doing the helping, so they might as well get paid for it too.”

In my own life: babysitter, teacher, birth doula, sex worker.

She goes on, “because helping and holding and listening and caring were the only times we felt we knew what we were doing, even though we had no idea. because that was the way that other people loved us. because maybe, we thought in our secret hearts, that’s all we were good for.”

“Caregiver,” she says, “I see you.”

But here is the thing, I realized through my tears that I didn’t want to be seen. It was too intimate, too raw. I wasn’t ready for someone else to recognize that my need to care for others is, in part, a defense against the fear that I am not worthy of being taken care of myself—or that even if I was, there wouldn’t be anyone around to do it. I wasn’t ready for anyone to see that it is only in my capacity to care for others—to morph myself into a shape that fits their needs—that I know how to be.

As I read this, I was thinking about a relatively recent session with a client I adore. He, too, has built a career of service to others. In bed on a weekday morning, naked between the sheets, he collapsed into me and told me that he didn’t know if I understood how meaningful it was that I took care of him that morning—a rare treat for someone who spends their life caring for others.

But I did know. I knew because I felt in him an exhaustion and a longing that mirrored my own. I remember saying, “Someone has to care for the caregivers.” I also remember that one of us, I’m not sure which, added, “Maybe we, as the caregivers, need to take care of each other.”

A perfect moment. I will never forget it.

There are many moments in this job of great profundity, moments where I can’t imagine devoting my life to anything more meaningful—more intimate, more magical—than sex work. As a former sex worker, Cheng Thom understands the spectacular beauty of these moments. In her letter “to the goddess of whores and all her children” she says,

the gift you gave us was the power of touch. how many people have passed through my hands? my body kept the score. i still have the taste of them, the smell, the feel of their skin. i keep the memory of each one inside me. like foxes, like wolves, like coyotes they came, canine in their hunger and heat. i tamed them, Goddess. i used the gifts you gave me. i opened them up. skinned them alive. wove them back together and returned them from the dead. made them human again. made them whole. you taught me that, Goddess: what pleasure can do

What pleasure can do. This refrain plays on repeat in my head.

Earlier this morning, I was talking to a friend with a similarly chaotic life filled with work and family caretaking responsibilities. I mentioned what I was thinking and writing about. She is a self-described compulsive caregiver, and I knew that she would also recognize herself in Cheng Thom’s words. She asked me, “What is it like to hear need and join its cries, instead of answering them?”

I do not know the answer to that question, but I am trying to learn.

What I’m Excited About:

I have been hinting that I am working to create a new podcast about sex work. This will be my 4th sex work podcast, Peepshow Podcast being the longest-running (100 episodes over 5 years). While Peepshow covered news and stories from the sex industry, or in other words, tackled sex work head-on, this new venture will do the opposite. When We’re Not Hustling: Sex Workers Talking About Everything But, will be a show that interviews sex workers about the things in their life that aren’t sex work. Our guests will answer the question: What does sex work allow you to do? Who does sex work allow you to be? 

I have already recorded 4 episodes worth of content, and I have more interviews lined up! Starting at the beginning of the year, a new episode will drop every two weeks. I will make sure to point you to it when they are available.

Speaking of podcasts, I was a guest on another podcast earlier this week! You can check out my interview with RubyLynne of Granny Panty Podcast here (or anywhere you can listen to podcasts):

Booking & Availability:

Book me in Pittsburgh!

I’ll be in  New York City from Jan 11-14. I can only accommodate 1 more appointment while there, so reach out to get your spot!

I’ll also be going to Buffalo, NY from Jan 26-28.

If I haven’t come to your city and you’d like to see me, you could consider booking a sponsored tour! You can find out more about those on the Patronage page of my website. Feel free to shoot me an email with suggested cities: Cybele_rain@protonmail.com.

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

Recently, my house has felt like it has a revolving door. The holidays are always busy, but in addition to the normal holiday shuffle, I also have been working on some ongoing home improvement projects—with the help of a dear client who has mad skills—that have made my life (and my house!) extra busy. I am currently writing this Musing on my laptop while lounging on the chaise that he rebuilt for my office. I lived a charmed life!

I’ve also been working with my assistant to create a new podcast. It’s always fun to create something new, but it’s especially great when collaboration is smooth, and ideas are flowing. I will share more about the podcast soon!

In other words, I haven’t had much time for reading. Instead of sharing a book with you today, I want to share some thoughts I have about a persistent cluster of related claims I continue to run into on social media. Namely: Sex work isn’t real work; Sex workers should get real jobs; Sex workers are in it for the quick cash and don’t want to work like the rest of us… etc.

These claims are leveled against us from many directions: from SWERFs, incels, liberals who buy into anti-trafficking propaganda, religious conservatives, people who think that money is not a legitimate reason to have sex, etc.

Anyone who has tried to make a living in the sex industry can easily defend against these claims. In fact, it is an oft-cited truism among us that  while sex work is “quick money,” it is not “easy money.” When it’s good, sex work may command high hourly rates, but there is a lot of invisible labor that goes into every single sexual transaction.

Indeed, sex workers are often quick to list what that invisible labor consists of: photoshoots, website development/maintenance, advertising, copywriting, social media management, content creation, video/photo editing, personal maintenance like hair and nails, corresponding with clients, screening, logistics planning, bookkeeping, etc. In other words, while it may look like we pocket $500 for, say, a one-hour session, there are countless hours and dollars invested behind the scenes that make the one-hour interaction possible. Simply put, sex work is work.

What I’m Thinking About:

Making a living as a sex worker is, indeed, a lot of work. We do not simply, as one Reddit commenter suggests, lay on our back and spread our legs (I refuse to link to this nonsense).  Moreover, I understand the desire to legitimate our work, especially in the face of enormous stigma and criminalization. Afterall, it is impossible to fight against these very entrenched ideologies and laws without a coherent and compelling story about sex work as a job—just like other jobs. There are strategic reasons why sex worker rights discourse has often taken the form of labor rights discourse.

And yet, there are stories that we, as sex workers, tell those outside of sex work, and then there are stories that we tell ourselves and each other. Yes, yes; a blow job is a real job. But is it a job like flipping burgers, weaving a basket, programming a computer, or building a house? (And is that even the most interesting thing to say about a blow job?) Or, is it something else altogether? As I have said before: sex work is work, but it is also sex. And sex, well, sex is a lot of things! Too many to get into here.

To say that sex workers should get a “real job” is to suggest that sex workers don’t have a solid work ethic, an insult to Americans who have been raised on a steady diet of bootstrapping narratives.  In defense of this accusation, sex workers can remind folks that much of our labor is invisible and that we work more hours than they imagine. We can also piggyback on feminist theorists who remind us that emotional labor, caretaking, and the soft skills sex workers have are valuable to the functioning of our society.

All of this is true. We could do this. But should we? What, after all, is so good about work anyway? The question I keep asking myself is this: Do we want sex work to be a job… like other jobs? And importantly, why do we, as a culture, valorize jobs at all?

Having dropped out of conventional employment to forge my living in the sex industry nearly a decade ago, I’ve come to recognize that the beauty of sex work, as a job, is precisely that it doesn’t follow the same rules of conventional employment. We have to work, (in this capitalist hellscape, money, unfortunately, doesn’t fall from the sky), but sex work plays by its own rules. Perhaps sex workers don’t have “real jobs”; perhaps this is a feature, not a bug.

Perhaps sex workers don’t have “real jobs”: perhaps this is a feature, and not a bug.

To say that sex work plays by its own rules is not to suggest that sex work is a free-for-all. Though it doesn’t follow the norms of conventional employment, sex work has its own set of norms. This week, I put some thought into what those norms may be. Here is what I came up with, feel free to reach out if you think of ways I can expand on this list.

1. Everything can wait if it needs to. Unlike contemporary work culture that pushes deadlines and schedules, sex workers can work on their own timelines. While many folks who coach sex workers on success in the industry will say that consistency is key, I have often found this advice anathema to many of the reasons I got into sex work to begin with. I have a complex life, as do most sex workers, and that life often doesn’t allow me to adhere to a rigid schedule. And you know what, that’s okay. It can all wait.
2. There are no dick emergencies. We are service providers like any other professional service provider. As such, clients can follow our lead and schedule around our lives and other obligations. Everything, including horniness, can wait if it needs to.
3. Boundaries are key. In my non-sex work employment, boundaries were discouraged. I remember, as a teacher, being pushed into an unsafe situation with a student who was actively stalking and harassing me because the administration was afraid of him. They threw me under the bus to save their reputation, and this was relatively commonplace. It wasn’t until I became a sex worker that I learned, from other sex workers, how to listen to my instincts and assert and hold my boundaries.
4. Neurodivergence and disability are normal. As someone with ADHD and other undiagnosed learning disabilities, work culture often made me feel like a square peg that was being stuffed into a round hole. Things just didn’t work, and I was made to feel like I was the problem. In sex work, I have found a community of folks who have had similar experiences in conventional employment, and who have been much more comfortable and successful in the sex industry. Autistic folks, trans folks, disabled folks, chronically sick folks, folks with complex trauma. Folks who need space to be able to do things in a way that makes sense for them. Sex work is often one of the few places that offers real accommodations.
5. Don’t block anyone else’s bag. We are all out here trying to survive. Helping each other do so is always more effective than undermining one another. Operate from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. When you’re up, share the wealth. I guarantee that when the tables turn (and they will), it’ll come back to you.
6. Don’t ask anyone to do unpaid labor when paid labor is available. This is simple. We should value our labor and other people’s labor. Pay them for their work! In my previous life as an academic, there was such a tremendous expectation of free labor. Only folks who aren’t fighting for survival can afford to offer free labor, thus further stratifying the economic divide. Assume everyone has something of value to offer, and pay them for it.
7. Take care of the people around you, and they will take care of you. No further explanation is necessary.

We do not need to work full time in a conventional sense to ground our work in an ethics that takes community, relationships, health, and well-being seriously. Sex workers already do this. Rather than thinking about work from the standpoint of productivity and bottom lines, we can reimagine work as a form of care. Care for clients, care for each other, care for our families, and care for ourselves. Perhaps instead of telling sex workers to “get a real job,” folks should look to us as examples of another way of being in the world.

What I’m Excited About:

Did I tell you I have a new podcast launching at the beginning of 2024?? I have a new podcast launching! I can’t wait to share more information with you, but I have been busily recording and planning for it with my producer, Emily.

Also, I am excited to have launched my sexy postcards! A couple of people have already ordered them, and I am looking forward to getting those in the mail this weekend!

Would you like a letter? A handwritten postcard? A touch of tenderness in an otherwise cold season? I am now offering all of these, and have more information and an order form on my website.

Booking & Availability:  

I will be in Pittsburgh for the remainder of 2023. I will be taking bookings in Pittsburgh for all of December.

In January of I have two trips planned. I’ll be in New York City from Jan 11-14. My trip is almost entirely booked, I probably only have time for 1 or two more appointments while I’m there. If you’re in NYC and would like to book, I suggest you reach out soon!

I’ll also be going to Buffalo, NY from Jan 26-28.

If I haven’t come to your city and you’d like to see me, you could consider booking a sponsored tour! You can find out more about those on the Patronage page of my website. Feel free to shoot me an email with suggested cities: Cybele_rain@protonmail.com.

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

“To paraphrase a prophet: Letters are structures, not events. Yours give me a place to live inside.”

This week I read a beautiful novel, cowritten by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This Is How You Lose the Time War takes the form of love letters that travel across time between two unexpected lovers, Red and Blue—agents on the opposite side of a long war.

Their relationship starts with a single letter, from Red to Blue. When Blue returns that first letter, she says, “But here I’ve repaid your letter with my own. Now we have a correspondence.” This sounds straightforward enough. Back-and-forth communication is, indeed, a correspondence.

But why correspond? What is the nature and purpose of correspondence? In this case—and perhaps in most cases—the beginning of a correspondence is the beginning of a relationship. For Red and Blue,  it is the beginning of an intense and exploratory one that changes them both. Deep into their correspondences one of them says, “I have built a you within me, or you have. I wonder what of me there is in you.”  

Given that they are on opposite ends of the war, it takes some time before they trust—much less, love—each other. At the beginning of their exchanges, Blue implores, “What do you want from this, Red? What are you doing here? Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all.”

It is here that the value of the letter comes into focus. Through the pen, they can open their worlds and their truths to one another in a way that is rawer than it would be otherwise. Red answers, “You asked me to tell truths. I have. What do I want? Understanding. Exchange.”

What I’m Thinking About:

I have often said that I don’t know how I feel about something until I write about it. Red says that what she is looking for in the letters is understanding. At first blush, we assume that she wants to be understood by Blue. She probably does. But we can also imagine that she wants to become intelligible to herself, as well.

In a beautiful passage that sticks with me because it resonates with my own experience of writing, the authors say, “Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein. She stained the page with herself.” She poured herself onto the page. For her lover. Perhaps for herself.

In this book, the letter serves as a bridge between Red and Blue, it gives them an understanding of each other and of themselves. This experience is profound and as such, not easily translatable. Indeed, one of them says, “I keep turning away from speaking of your letter. I feel—to speak of it would be to contain what it did to me, to make it small.” The letters contain within each of them an expansiveness that is only palpable to its intended recipient.  

What I’m Excited About:

Even before reading this book, I was thinking about the lost art of letter writing; the paper, the unique penmanship of its author, the knowledge that the person writing the letter has touched the very same paper I hold in my hand.

Perhaps I show my age when I wax nostalgic about the handwritten letter, but I don’t mind. Some nostalgia is worth indulging in.

I was hoping that you experience some of this nostalgia as well, and that you’d be interested in exchanging love letters. I have created some beautiful postcards that I would love to personally send you with a note, a spray of perfume, a picture—tangibles that you can keep with you long after (or between) the ephemeral tryst we share.

 Would you like a letter? A handwritten postcard? A touch of tenderness in an otherwise cold season? I am now offering all of these, and have more information and an order form on my website.

Booking & Availability:  

I will be in Pittsburgh for the remainder of 2023. I will be taking bookings in Pittsburgh for all of December.

In January of I have two trips planned. I’ll be in New York City from Jan 11-14. My trip is almost entirely booked, I probably only have time for 1 or two more appointments while I’m there. If you’re in NYC and would like to book, I suggest you reach out soon!

I’ll also be going to Buffalo, NY from Jan 26-28.

So far, I haven’t booked any other travel for 2024. I would love to visit cities I’ve never toured before! I have no idea why, but Detroit, Seattle, and Columbus spring to mind. If I haven’t come to your city and you’d like to see me, you could consider booking a sponsored tour! You can find out more about those on the Patronage page of my website. Feel free to shoot me an email with suggested cities: Cybele_rain@protonmail.com.

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

“A man has two ways out in life—laughing or crying. There’s more hope in laughing.” — Dick Gregory

This week I read comedian Mike Birbiglia’s newest book The New One: Painfully True Stories From a Reluctant Dad; it was a gift from a sweet new client. 

I have been a long-time fan of This American Life, where Birbiglia is a regular contributor, so I am familiar with his work, but this is the first time I have read any of his books. A special treat of this particular book is that his wife’s lovely poetry is sprinkled throughout. 

While the book was about his decision to become a father—and the anxiety that this decision evoked—that isn’t the part of the book that stood out the most to me. I was a young mother and also an oldest daughter who helped raise my siblings. I don’t know what life is like without children present, so his anxiety is somewhat unrelatable to me. 

What I did relate to, however, is the challenge he faced, as a writer and comedian, to write about the things happening in his life without overstepping the boundaries of his relationships. In particular, while his wife was pregnant, she asked that he not talk on stage about the pregnancy. This was a particular challenge for him because, in his words, “A solid chunk of my life is spent living and another hearty slice is spent on stage telling jokes about living.” And, what gives you more good jokes than pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenting?

To manage this challenge, Birbiglia decides to change up his routine and talk about the value of telling jokes (of jokes themselves), rather than making jokes about his wife’s pregnancy. This move makes sense to me. I notice that my writing leans on meta analysis and abstraction when I am hoping to obscure truths that are too personal, particularly when I think my words may hurt those I love or have loved. Last week, for example, I alluded to my own broken and damaged relationships, without mentioning any specifics. Not everything is for public consumption. 

What I thought was insightful in Birbiglia’s discussion of jokes is their power to quell our deepest fears, anxieties, and pain. As an example, he argues that jokes about bombs are the most funny when there is the possibility of a bomb threat (for example, on an airplane). “Therein lies the risk and reward of jokes,” he says. “We joke about things we are most anxious about to defuse the anxiety of the actual threat. We’re defusing bombs with jokes about bombs.” 

We do not have to agree with him about what kind of joke is funny—I know that I wouldn’t find a bomb joke funny if I was on an airplane—to understand the function of humor. Humor can get us through our worst pain, and it can break the tension during some of our most intense moments. Indeed, Birbiglia says, “The jokes that touch on the most painful topics can often bring the deepest laughs and the most healing. That’s why I try to talk onstage about my greatest source of pain… those are my best jokes.” 

What I’m Thinking About:

Thinking back to last week’s Musing, which coincidentally also featured a comedian, I am struck by Krista Tippett’s question to Bartunde Thurston. She says, “There is a spiritual aspect of humor, comedy—comedy isn’t really quite a big enough word…it’s a way of moving through the world for you, and actually metabolizing precisely what is unfunny.”

Thurston’s response is in line with Birbiglia’s observations. He says, “Metabolizing is a great word. I’ve often thought of myself as ingesting as much of the world as I can and processing it and trying to release it in a healthier form for me—because just taking all that in is actually very poisonous.”

Thurston points to an important truth here. We cannot just take in all the ugly of the world without significant harm; it is poisonous. But the human imagination, our ability to weave levity into the most serious of matters, isn’t necessarily irreverent, it can be a matter of survival.

What I also think is important, especially in my line of work, is the intimacy a good laugh can foster. Birbiglia says, “Sharing a private joke with an audience is so intimate that, in a way, it’s like marrying the audience.” Marriage is a strong word, but I appreciate what he is getting at. Being able to find the humor in “precisely what is unfunny,” in Tippett’s words, engenders connection and intimacy. 

As I read this I thought of a date I went on with a client this week, our fourth, where we really laughed together for the first time because, despite all of the other intimate things we had experienced together, the fourth date is where we knew each other well enough to let our guards down enough to share a joke. The giggle felt more intimate, indeed, than the moment before when he was inside of my body. 

What I’m Excited About:

Along with intimacy, I have also been thinking about nostalgia. Or more specifically, I have been thinking about what we lose, in our techno-centric culture, when we allow all of our personal interactions to be digitally mediated. 

In other words, I have been thinking about handwritten postcards, letters, and other tangibles. I have also been thinking of making as many of you my penpals as possible. 

In the next coming weeks, I will be announcing exactly what I have in mind. In the meantime, let this picture stoke your curiosity (and hopefully a little nostalgia in you as well).

Booking & Availability:  

I’ll be in Pittsburgh for the rest of 2023! If you’re interested in booking me here you can fill out my booking form here. If you are interested in seeing me come to your city sometime in 2024, I invite you to look at my travel page. 

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

I read a book for this week’s Musings that I considered telling you about, but I ended up hating it and I didn’t want to give it any more time and attention. A better use of my time, I thought, would be to tell you about a very generative conversation that I heard between host Krista Tippett and comedian Beratunde Thurston on the podcast On Being.

I have mentioned On Being many times in my Musings, and this is because there is something about the tone and tenor of the show that speaks to my soul. When asked once by a client what I wanted to be doing in ten years, I surprised myself by answering that I wanted to be the Krista Tippett of the sex work world. 

I will not give you an introduction to the show; if you’re interested, you can check it out for yourself. What I will say is that the reason it speaks to me is because every interview is grounded in the human condition and the creative ways in which we, as humans, strive to make sense of our world. Thurston’s interview is no exception. Indeed, early on, he talks about comedy as the vehicle through which he does this. “To make sense of the world and our place in it is probably a spiritual quest and comedy, humor, has definitely helped me try to do that,” he says. 

I am certainly not a comedian, I’m not remotely funny. And yet, I resonate with what Thurston says insofar as I often think about sensuality (and the embodied work that I do with many of you), as an important medium for understanding myself, my relation to others, and my place in the world. This feels, indeed, like a spiritual quest. 

What I’m Thinking About:

The part of Thurston’s interview that I’ve been intentionally mulling over since listening to it is about his mother, but it is broadly applicable to all of our relationships. In his first book. How to Be Black, he paints his mother as a hero, as the one who shepherded him to adulthood with care and grace. While this is a true story—it’s what all good mothers do—it’s an incomplete one. Thurston explains, “So through COVID […] I was force-fed time to contend with some of this, and I came to the radical conclusion that my mother was a person, a whole person with elements of everything and that some of her limitations affected me. They weren’t her fault, it didn’t make her bad; it just made her real.”

While it is pleasant—and in many cases, self-protective—to think of our mothers (or our fathers, our spouses, our friends, our siblings…) in the best possible light, Thurston points out that one-dimensional brush strokes foreclose the possibility of a robust relationship, one grounded in truth. It is precisely in contending with our loved one’s flaws, with the ways they have hurt us or disappointed us, that we can truly love. He says,    

But when we know the whole of a person, then we can love them. For those of us who are in really loving relationships, we know that that is true. Our spouses, our children, our siblings, our friends… we know some dirt, we know some shameful things, we know some embarrassing things that they’re not going to advertise on their public social media profiles. And that creates an intimacy and a vulnerability. 

It feels important to say here that facing the ways that the people we love have hurt us is a painful process, but one that Thurston suggests is necessary in order to have intimacy and vulnerability within these relationships. “You can’t repair without rupture,” he says. “You can’t heal without the acknowledgment of harm.” 

In my capacity as a sex worker, many people come to me with stories of ruptured relationships. I carry their stories within me and hold them alongside my own stories of broken and damaged love. We cannot be human without hurting each other. But perhaps the realization of this inevitability can be helpful. Perhaps it can give us a framework for recognizing the humanity in the people we love and moving from the rupture to the repair.  

What I’m Excited About:

An essay that I wrote for my book (which I am now seeking a publisher for after pulling my contract from West Virginia University Press), will be published in the forthcoming anthology The Holy Hour: An Anthology of Sex Work, Magic & the Divine on Working Girls Press. The essay is about shame, sexuality, and religion. Working Girls Press has launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the book to print, and you can contribute to the project (I suggest you do!) here. 

If you enjoy my writing and want a more personal touch, I will be announcing a new project (a new modality of connection? a new something!) soon. Watch out in the next couple of weeks and I will share it with you. Until then, I hope this will whet your appetite! 

Booking & Availability:  

I will be in Pittsburgh for the remainder of 2023, but I am very excited to announce a January tour to NYC! If you want to book me in New York sometime between January 11-14, reach out! My calendar for those days is already starting to fill. 

Make sure to check out my complete travel schedule on my website.

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

I have heard it said that when one writes from the heart with raw vulnerability, that their story is at once intensely personal, and also universal—as in, it taps into the human condition we all share. This truth of this kept coming to mind as I read Amy Bloom’s sweet memoir, In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss.

The book chronicles her husband Brian’s early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and her role in helping him to be approved for medically assisted suicide before the disease progresses beyond the point where he can meaningfully consent.

While most of us—for cultural, legal, and logistical reasons, among others—will never be in the position that Amy is in, I still feel a deep kindred with her. Perhaps I feel this because I have watched those close to me suffer, or perhaps because I have (for other reasons) been forced to navigate the non-sensical bureaucratic hellscape that is the United States’ health care system.  

Or perhaps, it is just that I can feel Amy’s love for Brian in the way she talks about him, and I can imagine how hard it must have been to respect his wishes and autonomy enough to let him go. The emotionality of this struggle seeps out of her words.  

Throughout the book we see her weeping at dinner, on walks, in the doctor’s office, with Brian, in the car. She says, “I teared up all through dinner, with Brian occasionally patting my hard. I keep crying because I loved him and his appetites and all the sensuality and good humor and heat-seeking that went with them.”

She knows that the things she loves about him—the things that make him him—are slowly fading and that keeping him alive won’t keep him with her. This seems worth repeating. Keeping him alive won’t keep him with her. This realization cuts to the core of who we are as human beings; it touches on the universal. She comments,

“I understand that all happiness is fleeting, but I see now that there is fleeting and then there is the true and wall-like impossibility of ever experiencing this kind of happiness again, even once, even next week, let alone a year from now. Doors are closing around us, all the time.”

Indeed, both Brian and Amy try to explain this to the therapist who is trying to talk them out of seeking death. In Amy’s words, “She says the word joy several times, and Brian and I stare at her. We want joy, we do. We really do. And neither of us thinks that eight years of a steady decline and complete loss of self sounds like joy.”

What I’m Thinking About:

It seems significant that the letter Amy helps Brian write to family and friends about his death closes with, “If you wish to commemorate his life, please make a donation to Planned Parenthood.” Brian served as a volunteer patient escort at their local Planned Parenthood, which is appropriate, but it is more than this. I don’t think that it’s possible to talk about the right to die without talking about other ways in which the rights to bodily autonomy are infringed upon.

The right to an abortion, the right to die, the right to use our bodies/sexuality how we see fit (including to make money), the right to gender-affirming care, and the right to disability access.

Our country, unfortunately, isn’t good at extending any of these rights to its citizens. Amy comments,

“Choosing to die and being able to act independently while terminally ill is a deliberately narrow opening. Many people can’t get through it. They can’t swallow well enough. They can’t talk well enough. They can’t hold the glass or mix the drink on their own. People who wish to end their lives and shorten their period of great suffering and loss—those people are out of luck in the United States of America.”

Anyone who has tried to thread these kinds of needles knows how impossible it is.

Those who seek abortions in some states are not allowed to obtain them after 6 weeks but cannot get in to see a doctor before they hit that threshold.

Children with disabilities are not allowed to be integrated into classrooms without one-on-one support staff, and that staff is often unavailable.

Those with stigmatized mental health diagnoses are unable to access doctors who specialize in their illnesses without prior authorization that can only be given by those same doctors.

I could list more but I don’t need to, most of you will have examples of your own.

Amy rightfully points out, “The right to die in America is about as meaningful as the right to eat or the right to decent housing; you’ve got the right, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to get the goods.”

In a fit of frustration with the process, Brian notes, “This is crazy. It’s my life, I should get to decide how to end it.” He is right, he should. 

We should also all get the right to decide how to live.

What I’m Excited About:

October is my favorite month. I love the turn to crisp air and the feeling of leaves crunching under my feet. This past weekend I went with some friends up to Lily Dale, New York, and had a magical experience where I saw the sun shine through the trees while also seeing the leaves gently falling to the ground. Fall is so beautiful! 

I am looking forward to spending fall evenings around the fire pit in my yard, traveling to Buffalo and Boston, and connecting with people I love.

I am not a costume person, but I also look forward to taking my little son trick-or-treating and seeing the neighborhood children in their costumes!

Booking & Availability:  

Buffalo, NY | Oct 13-15

Boston, MA | Oct 26-29

Pittsburgh in between

Make sure to check out my complete travel schedule on my website.

You can listen to the audio version of this Musing here.

A few years ago, on a work trip to NYC, I was gifted a copy of Saeed Jones’ coming-of-age memoir How We Fight For Our Lives by a beloved client. I remember hungrily devouring the book before I made it back to Pittsburgh.

This week I decided to revisit the book (it was worth a second read!) and was pleasantly surprised to find Jones speak with nuance about a theme I’ve been thinking quite extensively about lately: coming out.

Earlier this week, I published an article on Tryst’s Blog about the impact of coming out as a sex worker. In it, I argue that while there are good reasons to come out (eg., in solidarity with other sex workers, pride, to gain political recognition as a group, to avoid the pitfalls of living a double life, etc.), the cost of doing so can be quite high, and for many workers—especially those who are multiply marginalized—it may not be worth it.

I also wrote about the ways that being out as a sex worker has come to shape my life and my relationships, and I admitted that it hasn’t been uniformly positive. Talking about this isn’t easy; as sex worker, I am always conscious to not spoon-feed ammunition to the antis, and hence, I’m inclined to hold negative experiences and feelings close to my chest.      

Now while Jones isn’t a sex worker, he is a gay Black man. His memoir takes us on a journey of coming to understand himself and his (sexual) identity through and in relation to his family, white America, masculinity, and heteronormativity.   

As is true with most LGBTQ coming-of-age memoirs, coming out to his family and those close to him is a key part of his journey. In a beautiful passage that points to the complexity of such an act, Jones writes,

 “When I looked up, [my mother] was staring at me, wide-eyed, almost pleadingly—as if I’d led someone afraid of heights to the edge of a rusting bridge. And then I did exactly what I thought all people who love each other do: I changed the subject; I changed myself; I erased everything I had just said; I erased myself so I could be her son again.”

We know it is impossible to unsay things that have been spoken aloud, and it is precisely for this reason that coming out is so hard. Those we decide to tell cannot un-know what they come to know. But I also understand Jones’ impulse. I have sat at family dinners and pretended to be a housewife among folks who know I’m a whore for the exact reason Jones “erased” himself. I intimately know the erasure Jones writes of, it is a game we are forced to play.  

What I’m Thinking About:

I argued in my Tryst piece that we don’t all have to sacrifice ourselves to the sex worker rights movement, nor do we need to feel pressure to out ourselves to those who will make our lives unsafe or unpleasant. I believe this.  

 And yet, my mind keeps returning to all the reasons why I continue to live the life that I do, why I continue to insist on my visibility, and why I continue to be out. Admittedly, I have the privilege of being able to do so without some of the devastating consequences that some face, but that is not to suggest that it is easy.

My hope, though (and perhaps this is too idealistic), is that those who are safe to come out will create the conditions for future sex workers to do so as well. We need only to look at Gen Z LGBTQ students who come out with a previously unimaginable specificity to know that this has been true within queer spaces.  Relatedly, visibility is crux.

 Jones displayed this visibly in the book when he reflected on his first experience at a drag brunch. He writes, “I didn’t need to fully understand gay culture in order for it to make me feel welcomed. All I needed to do was look around and see that gay people here didn’t appear to be scared, ashamed, hiding, or dying.” The drag queens just being out and visible to a young Jones allowed him to imagine a future for himself that didn’t include shame and fear. That is some powerful stuff.

What I’m Excited About:

Speaking of coming out (or in this case, being outed), I have been following the news story of Virginia House candidate Susanna Gibson, who was outted as being a sex cam performer on the popular site Chaturbate (interestingly, the site that started my career in sex work).

While I can’t say that I’m excited that her history of sex work is being used as a weapon to dismantle her candidacy, I am happy that instead of dropping out of the race, she has decided to fight for her rights to both do the work, and for it not to be taken out of the context it was intended for (Chaturbate). She and her lawyers are arguing that the sexual material that has been leaked was done without her consent and that this form of revenge porn should be viewed as a sex crime against her.

While I am not sure how this case will go, it does seem important. We all know that male politicians have been caught many times over hiring prostitutes and engaging in other sexual scandals. We also know that most of them go on to have relatively unscathed political careers. I have been waiting for the day when a woman who has worked in the adult industry is also the politician in question. Hopefully, this will open up a discussion about who sex workers are, why they do the work they do, and why their work in the industry should not be a barrier to other ambitions in their lives.

Booking & Availability:  

Buffalo, NY | Oct 13-15

Boston, MA | Oct 26-29

Pittsburgh in between

Make sure to check out my complete travel schedule on my website.