Being Amber Rhea

Re: this Feministe post (which a friend emailed me, because as I mentioned, I’ve been taking a break from reading most blogs)…

I must rant as if no one is looking, briefly.

I’m fed up w/ this bullshit. FED UP. I am just sick of all this groupthink/lockstep mentality going on. And I’m sorry but I’ve always thought that the people who think socialism is so awesome are privileged in their OWN way (as much as I’m sick of the word “privilege” being thrown around so much, too…) because it’s like, you know what, I know what it’s like to NOT have money, and I know it’s not romantic or revolutionary or transgressive - it SUCKS. So for me, having money is empowering not to mention “empaychecking.” Not everybody has the luxury to worry about what the best economic system is when they have to put food on the table, ever think of that? Plus the same old thing I keep coming back to… WHY is having money BAD?? It’s what you do with that money that counts, and yeah, feeding your family is pretty damn awesome. If you also have enough money to help others outside your family? GREAT!! But serious change takes economic leverage, and if we constantly vilify anybody who has a certain amount of money, we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot.

I’m fucking sick of it.

So there yo go. Cast me out, if you will. *shrug*

Originally posted as a comment on Octogalore’s thread by the same name.

• I am really starting to hate the word “privilege.” Not the concept, not the legitimate analysis; but the way it’s so often tossed around as an insult and a shield. The way even saying this makes me sound like the right-wing assholes I loathe. Big ol’ FAIL stamp to all that.
• Whenever someones says something about a “soul-sucking corporate job” as if this is a generally-understood, universally-loathed thing, I bristle.
• I think people who talk about doing what you love and the money will come, or it’s more important to do something for love, passion, commitment, dreams, ideals, etc. than money, have never really known what’s it’s like not to have a safety net (or never had a circumstance come up where they had to realize they don’t have one).
• When people ask - no, expect - me to do “pro bono” web development work, it REALLY offends me. It makes me feel like they don’t appreciate my work or value my time. It comes off as them saying their time is more valuable than mine.
• I love Starbucks. Same as last year’s confession!

Go on over to Octo’s post and leave your own!

Repost from the comments on this (excellent!) post by Octogalore…

—

Anyway. Looking at older, well-off women (”OWW”) as foreign creatures - moms, or well-off friends’ moms… sometimes, I want to say: how do you know that won’t be you? Why are you so sure these people have no relationship to you or your interests? You really never know. And you really don’t know if, in becoming… that… you’d lose your humanity, perspective, values.

THANK YOU!!!

That’s one of the things that bugs me the most about this whole theme. And it’s not just the age thing, but the “age-with-money” thing. Like, if you reach a certain age, and/or have a certain amount of money, suddenly some evil fairy touches you with their wand and you become “out of touch?”

The money thing in particular, I find quite offensive. As if it’s bad to have money. As if it’s bad to achieve monetary success. I’m sorry, but a whole lot of it reeks of jealousy and cluelessness. And I feel like I can’t say any of this very many places, because people will be like, “Oh yeah? Well, PRIVILEGE!!! You just say that because you must be rich, and you don’t know what it’s like to deal with blah blah blah…”

Oh really?

And those kinds of assumptions make me LIVID. How DARE you (general “you”) assume anything about my past, or my present for that matter, based on the fact that I don’t think having money is the worst sin ever? Having money allows one to do things to help others! Not that you can’t help others without a ton of money, but it sure doesn’t hurt! The economic leverage allows you to do some very concrete things to effect change.

I don’t come from money. AT ALL. I make a decent living in my job now, but I doubt I’ll ever shake the underlying fear/knowledge that the bottom could fall out at any time. That it’s all so tenuous. This is something that I don’t observe in my friends who grew up with a relatively more stable economic situation. They don’t get nervous dropping a few hundred dollars on, say, a new TV, if they have a few thousand in the bank and some savings to boot. Why should they?

Anyway, I’m rambling, and veering all over the place. I hope this makes sense. And aw hell, I might end up reposting it as a post on my own blog.

Today I had a rather lengthy email exchange with Christopher Penn about sex work, economics, financial aid, and stereotypes. (Yes, all of those things together!) I was frantically typing away in multi-tasking mode while at work, and somehow my replies ended up being longer and smarter-sounding than I’d expected, so I figured I had blog material on my hands. (I did some minor editing to fix typos and such in the parts I wrote.) Hence:
Read the full post »

Octogalore, in a comment on Ren’s site, in response to a commenter called JZ:

You also say: “Having money is also weakly empowering.” There are two serious problems with that.

First, it’s an incredibly privileged statement. Can you imagine how single moms who cannot pay their food/electricity would feel about how weakly they could be empowered by money?

Secondly, it’s an antifeminist statement. Telling women how unpowerful money is, and how much more rewarding other nonmonetary rewards are, is a powertool of the patriarchy.

Know why? Because the political positions that we don’t have the resumes for (because we chose not to pursue wage-earning), the VP jobs at companies who have the power to promote women (or not), the media leaders who have a role in what images of women to put forward? Guess who gets those if the gals back off? Wanna tell them how weakly empowered they are?

I could not agree more.

So far I’ve been too busy to write anything, but Ren has a great post that everyone should read, because it talks about something that I think a lot of people fail to consider in the discussions of decriminalization and destigmatization.

How’s my credit? Well, what credit? I have one, exactly one, credit card that I use for emergencies and travel (air miles). It is paid off on time, because oddly enough, while many credit card companies will bend over backwards to give you a credit card, somehow that changes if your occupation is “stripper”. So I try to keep the thing paid off. I have primarily for years used cash for everything: down payments, daily living, medical expenses- cash in full often- because it is easier often to hand over x amount of dollars for a dental visit or a car or any number of things when on all those little forms they ask name, age, occupation, job title, company…and your answers include stripper, porn performer, or god, goddess and all the little deities…an illegal aspect of the sex industry- a job you cannot write down at all. In the case of the window fellow…I handed him cash for the down payment, did not answer any of those little questions, and Mr. E is the one whose occupation, job title, and credit information went on those little forms…

You see, cash works for us, because you hand cash over and take your purchase. Qualifying for a car loan, a home loan, a home equity loan, a line of credit period, getting approved for an apartment or rental property, even if you do make good money in the sex biz? In many parts of the US, and the world in general, no easy task. Nor is getting insurance of any sort, or any other manner of little things a lot of people take for granted. And not only do you often not get those things, you get to deal with the looks, questions, and speculations of the people who you are filling out those little forms for. It’s lovely, really.

How about when you apply for a second straight job, or leave the sex biz for a straight job? Invariably, potential employers want to know what your other or previous line of work is/was…and my my, can’t that be interesting! Sure, in some fields, no one really cares. It’s easy enough to grab a gig in retail, or as wait staff, or a bartender, even as an office hand in various businesses, but a real office position? In a “straight” industry? Even if it is a job a trained monkey can do? You lie. You don’t tell other people what your other/former job is. You make up previous employment if you have too, and hope they don’t bother to check references. How about school? Well, I can tell you both professors and fellow students look at you oddly if sex work is paying the bills. And sure, sometimes one can hide what job they are in…in fact…most people can for a time, but sooner or later, people find out. And they talk.

And I suppose I don’t need to go over the just generalized opinions people have about sex workers again, do I?

She says “it’s the little things,” but I would argue that this stuff is BIG.

This is the stuff that folks in the middle-class “straight” world take for granted. You buy a new car and write down your occupation on the loan application… no big deal, right? It doesn’t get a second thought. See, the fact that this is almost never discussed - because it’s never thought of to begin with - is the very definition of privilege. And all of us who don’t work in the adult industry have that privilege.

I never know who to tip and who not to tip. Like this morning, when I called AAA and someone came and towed my car to the dealership (the repairs are going to cost me close to $800, btw… fun) - should I have tipped the tow truck driver? I don’t think I should, so I didn’t. But I don’t know. What’s the standard on that? And when Chem-Dry came out several months ago, should I have tipped that guy? I don’t remember if we did or not. I think maybe Rusty gave him $20. But is that the standard? The Boston Market catering guy seemed really happy to get a tip when he delivered the food for my birthday party. I assume tipping food people is always the standard, but maybe not for catering? Or maybe other people just stiff him a lot? I don’t know.

Before we hired our cleaning lady, I assumed I should tip her every time, just like how I tip the woman who cuts my hair every time. Then a bunch of people said no, don’t do that, instead give her a bunch of extra cash near the holidays. But then recently, someone else who uses a different cleaning service said he tips a few bucks every time, and the service’s web site made it sound like this was expected. And, since Christmas is near, should I leave extra money for our cleaning lady tomorrow, or wait until next time (two more weeks)? And how much should I leave?

This stuff is so confusing! I didn’t grow up rich, so we never hired people to do stuff (except yard work, but I don’t have any clue what the tipping is like on that, either), so I don’t know what the procedure is on any of it! Input, please!

(I originally wrote this in an email, but then I decided, hey, I should just put it up as a blog post.)

I read something a while back from radfem blogger (damned if I can remember who it was; I’ll have to go Googling) talking about how she was a conscientious objector to taxes, and she got so pissed because her dad ended up paying her taxes for her.

:|

Okay first of all, how do you get away w/ not paying taxes? I’m sorry, but the IRS sure as shit knew about it when I forgot to include one of my W-2s in 2004. (Took ‘em almost two years to contact me, but they did eventually!) And that was for a relatively paltry sum.

And, plus… sure, it sucks that some of our tax money goes to fund things like the war… but I really do think it’s like voting. Don’t vote? Don’t complain. I pay taxes and that makes me even more invested in caring about where that money goes. If I could, I’d divide it out and tell the government, “Give all my tax dollars to social services and education, NOT the war.” But, I can’t. So I do what little I can.

Grrrr.