by Jon Pressick
I’m sure some women will read this and worry about being friends with me. Up until now I’ve never slept with one of my friend’s boyfriends. I can’t imagine a situation in which that would feel right in my body. There are a whole other set of promises and agreements between me and my friends. Maybe we don’t have a promise to not fuck each other’s partners, but we do have promises around caring for each other and if I thought my friend would be upset, I suspect I wouldn’t be turned on. But if for some reason I am there with my friend’s boyfriend, and we have a crazy intense connection and sleeping with him doesn’t feel wrong in my body, I might do it. I feel the need however to emphasize that despite an incredibly vivid imagination, I can’t actually imagine any scenario in which this would happen.
Relationships are complicated, and emotions and promises and sex and bodies are complicated. I don’t think it’s possible to make absolute rules. I know that in the messy, real rawness of life, what sounds clear in theory gets muddled in practice. I have made choices in my life counter to everything I ever thought I knew about myself. That’s true not just in my relationships, but also my cancer treatment, my body, money, friendships and family.
I think it’s too easy to look at the black and white of a situation and judge the morality of it. And while I don’t go searching for men in relationships, I also don’t pretend I feel nothing when it’s not the case. I won’t try to sleep with your boyfriend, and it’s extremely unlikely, but I can’t promise it won’t ever happen.
Pump Dreams
Mitch Kellaway
As with all impulse buys, my gut feels how incomplete my life will be without this one. When it arrives in the mail, I eagerly tear open the packaging to reveal a dazzling pink box, covered in flowers. Bubbly lavender text dances over splashy magenta waves. Its glitz has an effect on me similar to picking up a carton of milk, only to notice that today it’s set to expire. I pause, put it down, then cautiously pick it up to peer closer. The picture on the website looked decidedly more badass.
Granted, once I get over my initial aversion—why do advertisers think this neon princess mess appeals to adults?—the clit pump inside is indeed my hasty purchase. Sitting in my hand, it resembles a plastic toy gun, with a limp rubber nozzle extending outward. A pressure gauge sits atop it, encasing a thin needle poised to flicker past zero. My childhood self would have spent days playing made-up undercover spy games revolving around this mysterious gadget. I dig out three small glass cylinders, each about a quarter inch wider than the last. I start with the smallest, a mere inch in girth, and hesitantly unzip my pants. Sitting alone in my living room, I’m still struck with a wave of performance anxiety; a silly grin makes its way across my face.
I don’t have a clitoris.
Or, rather, I used to have one. But since starting my gender transition a year ago, my relationship to it has become quite complex. Testosterone, though only adding a few centimeters of enhancement, has effectively rendered it a different organ to my consciousness. And finally living my true gender has changed my relationship to it radically. All of a sudden, I feel the intense need to look at it.
Not that I had ever shied away from acknowledging my nub—at least ever since I had discovered its pulsing pleasures as a teenager, hushed and feverish under my sheets. But I found little reason to search for it visually more than once, especially when I needed it most. My hands simply zoomed in to do their work, all muscle memory and flourish. My clitoris was less a place on my body than a feeling that coursed through me when I pressed that sweet spot right below the pubic bone. My third finger searched it out, the pad just the right size to cover it and jerkily eliminate the need to locate it almost as quickly as it arose.
Ten years past this frenzied peak of pubescent lust, testosterone gives me a reason to revisit the scene. Not only because I anticipate the growth that will creep in—but because I’m hit by the same heady waves of arousal I thought I’d left behind somewhere, along with my high school diploma. Other trans men warn me this will happen, but I expect it to be quite a bit less auto-erotic. I might have suspected this had I considered how alive I’ve become to my body’s wondrous capacity to grow hair. I get a thrill when-ever I run my hand over my stubbly face, my downy stomach, my furry ass. But touching isn’t enough; looking at the dark curls gathering around my belly button or shoulders, I become momentarily transfixed. I have a lot of moments with myself.
I feel the same wonder when I slide down my boxers, taking advantage of an empty apartment to whip out my junk—or dig out, rather, since it decidedly lacks a dangle. My labia are fleshy obstacles: heavy, fuzzy curtains obscuring the main act. I awkwardly arch my back to peer downward, push my fingers apart as wide as possible, and take in the most raw, pink, sensitive spot on my increasingly sensitive body. Though it takes an effort to keep it exposed, the inconvenience fades into the background as I admire its protrusion, the strong one inch of space it claims as its own.
Over the past month, I’ve spent stolen moments perusing other trans men’s endowments online. Never one to buy into the cultural bigger-is-better phallus myth, I surprise myself with how intensely I want to know just how big my dicklit can grow. While testosterone will certainly keep working its magic for a while longer, the man-made tactic intrigues me. And so, after a few days’ wait and a somewhat discouraging first attempt, I find myself once more sitting in my favorite reading chair, half-naked and warily eyeing my new pump.
My usual first step, upon handling some unknown contraption, is to pass it to my wife with a silent, befuddled look. With a theatrical sigh, she’ll figure out its inner workings, quietly pleased to exercise her handy-femme skills. She’ll hand it back, triumphant, with a light laugh at my hands-on hopelessness. I’d done the same with this challenge, but soon abandoned it in her presence to try again in solitude. The aura of penis-related fragility I’ve sensed around other men, both trans and cis, has enveloped me. I’m not quite ready, should my efforts fall short, to endure her reassurances that I am, and always will be, enough for her. The pump conjures phantom centimeters that threaten to haunt my relationship with my manhood.
In silence, I delicately hold the smallest glass cylinder, reminding myself that within a year’s time, only the largest one will be able to house my package. I screw it onto the end of the nozzle and carefully place it over my now-erect flesh. I’m heartened by how, ensconced in its see-through dome, my dick already appears magnified. My hand cautiously begins working the trigger. Though I know the process should be painless, I’ve nonetheless braced myself for an imagined sting. Or maybe even a sharp tug—a somewhat titillating prospect, come to think of it, for a man unable to manage a firm grip on his dick. Instead, I feel nothing.
I let out the gauge’s pressure, both disappointed and relieved. But I have a creeping suspicion that, like most of my solo tries with new devices, I’ve missed a crucial step. I release my nub, peering closely for any signs of desired engorgement or dreaded bruising, but encounter neither. I capture it again within its glass tank, emboldened to press down harder. And…nothing.
Exasperatedly, I examine the cylinder. I’m surprised to find, along with the now-familiar musky odor that’s only increased with testosterone use, a slight fog on the glass. For a moment, I deliriously imagine my dick exhaling—perhaps even sighing at being held up in the quest to embody its rightful size. Recalling an instruction video suggesting I practice first on more accessible body parts, I attach the tiny dome to one hairy thigh.
Bingo! The nozzle responds with an immediate jerk, and a circle of skin rises ever-so-slightly into the dome. When I release it, a perfectly round welt marks my success. I prepare myself to try one more time on my penis, ready to enforce the seal by pressing down and holding tightly.
Firmly gripping the cylinder’s base, my hand pumps the trigger. Instantly, my dick is clutched in a glassy embrace. It’s a new sensation, longer than any childhood pinch I endured from my brothers and more consistent than any playful nip from a neighbor�
��s puppy. Not to mention its location on my body, so unused to any treatment besides the wipe or the rub. Definitely tolerable, and even pleasant, if I don’t shift too much. I unclip it from the nozzle, set a timer, and settle in to read a book for the next fifteen minutes. But my focus is interrupted by the captivating sight of the cylinder jutting outwards from the surrounding lips. I imagine it melding with my flesh, granting me bionic penetrative power. I study its red lumpish core, transformed by the suction from a hooded clitoris to a minuscule uncircumcised phallus.
When the timer pulls me out of my rapture, I feel as if only a moment has passed. Now accustomed to the cylinder’s grip, I wish that I could keep it attached day and night, stretching erectile skin and maximizing blood flow until my dick erupts from its enclosure. But I cede to the instructions and to anatomical reality: my penis can only withstand the vacuum-locked pressure for short increments of time, increased gradually up to an hour maximum. And no matter how disciplined the practice, I can realistically strive for a modest, though meaningful, plateau: two inches in length, one and a half in girth while flaccid.
Released, my dick exhibits only the faintest swell, easily dis-missible as wishful thinking. But I smile inwardly, knowing the pump’s done its imperceptible work. New gaps have emerged between cells, destined to keep widening through daily stints of separation. Standing up to reinhabit my boxers, I feel as I do after my occasional attempts at exercise: eager and daunted at what my body can become if I only dedicate myself to uncovering its potential.
I return my pump to its box and carry the misty cylinder into the kitchen, where I reverently wash it and dedicate a fresh towel to its drying. For now, I let it stand proudly upright next to my sink, ensuring a lively dinnertime conversation with my wife and reminding me of its promise every time I glance over.
Prostitution Law and the Death of Whores
Laura Agustín
It doesn’t matter which political direction you come from: the topics of sex work, sexual exploitation, prostitution and sex trafficking seem like a Gordian knot. As long as you listen to one set of advocates and take their evidence in good faith, you are okay. But the minute you listen to another set of advocates with different arguments and evidence, everything falls apart. The way these subjects intersect leads to untenable contradictions that make progress seem impossible. Hand-wringing and ideological free-for-alls predominate.
Twenty years ago I first asked two questions that continue to unsettle me today. The first is answerable: What does a woman who sells sex accomplish that leads to her being treated as fallen, beyond the pale, incapable of speaking for herself, discountable if she does speak, invisible as a member of society? The answer is she carries a stigma. The second question is a corollary: Why do most public conversations focus on laws and regulations aimed at controlling these stigmatized women rather than recognizing their agency? To that the answer is not so straightforward.
I am moved to make this assessment after the murder of someone I knew, Eva-Marree Kullander Smith, known as Jasmine. Killed in Sweden by an enraged ex-partner, Eva-Marree was also a victim of the social death that befalls sex workers under any name you choose to call them. Immediately after the murder, rights activists cursed the Swedish prostitution law that is promoted everywhere as best for women. My own reaction was a terrible sinking feeling as I realized how the notion of a Rescue Industry, coined during my research into the “saving” of women who sell sex, was more apt than even I had thought.
Murders of sex workers are appallingly frequent, including serial killings. In Vancouver, Robert Pickton killed as many as twenty-six between 1996 and 2001 before police cared enough to do anything about it. Gary Ridgeway, convicted of killing forty-nine women in the 1980s-’90s in the state of Washington, said, “I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” Infamous statements from police and prosecutors include the Attorney General’s at Peter Sutcliffe’s 1981 trial for the murder of at least thirteen women in the north of England: “Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of this case is that some were not.” He could say this because of a ubiquitous belief that the stigma attached to women who sell sex is real—that prostitutes really are different from other women.
My focus on the female is deliberate. All who propose prostitution policy are aware that men sell sex, but they are not concerned about men, who simply do not suffer the disgrace and shame that fall on women who do it.
Stigma and Disqualification
Many people have only a vague idea what the word stigma means. It can be a mark on a person’s body—a physical trait, or a scarlet letter. It can result from a condition like leprosy, where the person afflicted could not avoid contagion. About his selection of victims Sutcliffe said he could tell by the way women walked whether or not they were sexually “innocent.”
Stigma can also result from behaviors seen to involve choice, like using drugs. For Erving Goffman, individuals’ identities are “spoiled” when stigma is revealed. Society proceeds to discredit the stigmatized—by calling them deviants or abnormal, for example. Branded with stigma, people may suffer social death— nonexistence in the eyes of society—if not physical death in gas chambers or serial killings.
In the late 1990s I wondered why a migrant group that often appeared in media reports and was well-known to me personally was absent from scholarly migration literature. I came to understand that migrant women who sell sex were disqualified as subjects of migration, in some perhaps unconscious process on the part of scholars and journal editors. Was the stigma attached to selling sex so serious that it was better not to mention these migrants at all? Or did people think that the selling of sex must transport anything written about it to another realm, such as feminism? When I submitted an article to a migration journal addressing this disqualification, “The Disappearing of a Migration Category: Women Who Sell Sex”1, two and a half years passed before its publication, probably because the editor could locate no peer reviewers willing to deal with my ideas.
Of the many books on prostitution I read back then, most dismissed the possibility that women who sell sex can be rational, ordinary, pragmatic and autonomous. The excuses followed a pattern: The women didn’t understand what they were doing because they were uneducated. They suffered from false consciousness, the failure to recognize their own oppression. They were addicted to drugs that fogged their brains. They had been seduced by pimps. They were manipulated by families. They were psychologically damaged, so their judgments were faulty. If they were migrants they belonged to unenlightened cultures that gave them no choices. They were coerced and/or forced by bad people to travel, so they weren’t real migrants, and their experiences didn’t count. Because they were brainwashed by their exploiters, nothing they said could be relied on. This series of disqualifications led to large lacunae in social-scientific literature and mainstream media, showing the power of a stigma that has its very own name—whore stigma. Given these women’s spoiled identities, others feel called to speak for them.
Rescue Industry, Legal Regimes and Stigma
The person in a helping profession or campaign is said to embody the good in humanity—benevolence, compassion, selflessness. But helpers assume positive identities far removed from those spoiled by stigma, and benefits accrue to them: prestige and influence for all and employment and security for many. Many believe that helpers always know how to help, even when they have no personal experience of the culture or political economy they intervene in. What I noted was how, despite the large number of people dedicated to saving prostitutes, the situation for women who sell sex never improves. In “Helping Women Who Sell Sex: The Construction of Benevolent Identities”2 I reveal the key that unlocked my understanding of the Rescue Industry.
Abolitionists talk continuously about prostitution as violence against women, set up projects to rescue sex workers and ignore the dysfunctionality of much that is conceived as “rehabilitation.” Contemporary
abolitionism focuses largely on the rescue of women said to be victims of trafficking, targeting the mobile and migrant women I mentioned earlier, who are now completely disappeared in a narrative of female victimhood. Although much of this goes on under a feminist banner, colonialist maternalism describes it better.
In classic abolitionism, whore stigma is considered a consequence of patriarchy, a system in which men subjugate women and divide them into the good, who are marriageable, and the bad, who are promiscuous or sell sex. If prostitution were abolished, whore stigma would disappear, it is claimed. But contemporary movements against slut-shaming, victim-blaming and rape culture clearly show how whore stigma is applied to women who do not sell sex at all, so the claim is feeble. Instead, abolitionism’s aversion to prostitution probably strengthens the stigma, despite the prostitute’s demotion to the status of victim rather than the transgressor she once was.
Under prohibitionism, those involved in commercial sex are criminalized, which directly reproduces stigma. In this regime, the woman who sells sex is a deliberate outlaw, which oddly at least grants her some agency.
For advocates of the decriminalization of all commercial-sex activities, the disappearance of whore stigma would occur through recognizing and normalizing the selling of sex as labor. We don’t yet know how long it may take for stigma to die out in places where some forms of sex work are decriminalized and regulated: New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Holland. Given the stigma’s potency in all cultures one would expect it to diminish unevenly and slowly but steadily, as happened and continues to happen with the stigma of homosexuality around the world.
