Healthy attachment happens when you honor yourself *and* the other person. “Honoring self” means developing awareness of your boundaries, your yes’s and no’s, your desires and hurts. For clients, this means leaning into the growth opportunities in your relationships with SWs. It also means being intentional about how much you invest in those relationships – you have to manage your relationship with your SW carefully so it doesn’t disrupt the rest of your life.

“Honoring other” means approaching your companion with empathy, respect, and kindness. It means prioritizing our consent, respecting our boundaries, and inviting us into deeper conversation with your curiosity. It means aligning your intentions, words, and actions in our relationship.

It’s normal to want things in your relationships. It’s reasonable to have hopes and desires for the future. The problem comes when either patrons or companions have attachment to relationship outcomes that cross the other’s boundaries, or their own: “Eventually she’ll develop feelings and stop charging me.” “I know he wants to maintain emotional distance, but maybe he’ll put me on an allowance.“ “She’d be smart to share her civilian career with me; I could mentor her!” “I know I would be best served by investing this time in therapy… but seeing her is so much more fun.” “We have a real connection, so it’s ok to engage her in open-ended email conversation without compensating her.”

Those sorts of boundary-crossing attachments can create unhealthy patterns in any relationship, and they often leave us sitting in negative feelings of longing. But even without boundary-crossing attachments, it can be easy to have a negative experience of unfulfilled desire in these relationships. Because companion/patron relationships often have inherent limits regarding time and activities, we’re prone to having periods of missing each other, and wanting things from the relationship that we’re not currently getting. The thing is, that’s going to be true in any sort of relationship, because all relationships have limitations. We can approach that missing with a sense of loss, or we can welcome that sense of missing as evidence of a strong connection. We can sit in the deliciousness of wanting, and savor feeling alive. Instead of being attached to specific outcomes, we can be grateful for what is.

Today is #MenstrualHygieneDay, and in an effort to destigmatize menstruation and continue bringing vulnerability, I'm inviting pussy-havers to talk about your relationship to having a period.

I'll go first!

Growing up, periods were a matter-of-fact part of life. I remember picking up tampons for my mom at the pharmacy, bringing her a hot water bottle when she got cramps. She even put in her tampon in front of me a couple times. 

I got my period for the first time when I was 11. It wasn't scary, because my mom had destigmatized menstruation so much in my household. I felt comfortable asking her for advice and going to her with my emotional needs around it. 

But as sexuality became an increasingly bigger part of my life, I started feeling more shame around it. I wanted boys to find me sexy- I didn't want to have any strange smells or discharge! 

As I got older, I found men who didn't balk at the idea of me having a period. I even found some who were comfortable having sex while I was on my period. That helped a lot. 

In my early 20's, my period transitioned from a shameful part of my life to a mere inconvenience. I related to it with a sigh and a shrug- and an occasional groan of pain from cramps. ;) 

As I grow and change in my understanding of the universe, however, it's becoming more than that. I now realize that bleeding is a shared experience that has been passed down from my ancestors. 

It's a sign of my health and my fertility. It's an indicator that I can _grow life_ inside of me. It's an opportunity to notice my divinity. 

Dancing to the chill beats, I came to a realization: Physical play is really, really important. When we play, we experiment. We embody ourselves in the present moment. And, once we get into it, we move without self-consciousness. 

Physical play is fun, connective, and replenishing. But it's more than that. That same experimentation, embodiment, and lack of self-consciousness is incredibly important for other pursuits. In particular, these components of play are the building blocks of dancing and fucking. 

Think about it: We can learn dance techniques, we can learn how to finger someone or make out. But without the embodiment of play, without practicing maintaining both connection with the other and lack of self-consciousness, we're not going to be able to be fully present in either of these pursuits. 

And that presence is what makes us good at dancing- and fucking. ;) 

So here's my invitation to you this week: play using your body. Try a funny walk to the bathroom, climb over your couch instead of standing up to get off of it, make strange shapes in the mirror, crawl around and roar like a lion.

Don't let your adult body stop you from experiencing the joy and connection of play. And if you're persistent, if you insist on doing it, others will eventually join you.

Lead from vulnerability, and lead from embodiment. 

There's a part of this inculturation process that troubles me, though: I'm concerned about the amount of aggression that often comes with these boundaries. Now, don't get me wrong, aggression has a place. Anger's there to tell me that I need to have a boundary. Aggression's there to reinforce that boundary if it's not being respected.

But I worry that when we start with anger and aggression, we needlessly alienate the person we're working with. We slap them on the wrist, rather than offering them a hand. And it hurts. It often hurts so much that the person we're working with closes off to self-protect. The hurt doesn't end there. It propagates into that person feeling a little less safe, a little less open, a little less willing to take chances. That hurt shows up in their future interactions, and they start either bringing more aggression themselves or closing off from the vulnerability of sharing.

What if, instead of calling them out, instead of othering them, we collaborated with them? What if we changed the framing from "You did something wrong" to "When you did that, I felt [uncomfortable, angry, etc.]"? When boundaries are crossed, when comments leave us uncomfortable, there's an opportunity: An opportunity to work together, to come to a deeper understanding of each other's realities, to learn more about the way we want to show up in the world.

To be clear, I'm not saying we should take every opportunity we have. Not everyone is always in a place to do this on either side. When I'm sufficiently triggered, my compassion can go away. And when others have been hurt enough times, they often need to do some deeper healing before being open to collaboration. But by challenging ourselves to collaborate when we can, by extending a hand, even when it might not be taken, we're doing our part to bring this world a little closer together. And the world needs that integration.

So next time you see someone crossing a boundary, or making an uncouth or offensive comment, I invite you to approach them with a spirit of collaboration. Let them decide to rise to meet you- or not

Can Twitter posts have an appendix? This one does.

i. A Basic Collaboration Model

Person A: When you did x, I felt y. I care about you, and I'd like to work together to resolve this dissonance.

Person B: I also care about you! What about x felt y to you?

Person A: [personal narrative that includes some introspection]

Person B: [validation of A's narrative, clarifying questions]

Person A: [response to clarifying questions]

Person B: [restatement of A's reality in B's words, checking to make sure it resonates with A]

Person A: What was going on for you there, though? Your reality is also important to me.

Person B: [personal narrative that includes some introspection]

Person A: [valladation of B's narrative, clarifying questions]

Person B: [response to clarifying questions]

Person A: [restatement of B's reality in A's words, checking to make sure it resonates with B]

(by this point, both A and B should feel, to some extent, heard and safe.)

Either: [suggestion of unified narrative that incorporates both realities, negotiation to make sure it resonates with both A and B]

Either/both: [setting of intentions to do something different in the future to prevent such a dissonance (there may be nothing!)]

Either/both: [make sure the other feels complete, compassionate closing statement about what it's been like to collaborate together]

Either/both: [find some way to receive aftercare/nourishment: another person, a piece of music, a physical activity...]

The end!

ii. Dissonance

There is a version of the collaboration model in [i.] that ends with either or both deciding that a unified narrative and mutual safety is unachievable, and deciding to step out of the connection indefinitely. This is also totally valid!

iii. Introspection opportunity 1

Are there times someone has called you out rather than collaborating with you? How'd it feel? How have those experiences shaped the way you interact with others? What do you like about that pattern? Is there anything you'd like to do differently?

iv. Introspection opportunity 2

We all have moments of being cut off from our ability to collaborate, which is when call-outs happen instead. What's a time recently you've lost the ability to collaborate? What's another? Is there a pattern to the times you've had trouble accessing compassion and collaboration? How do you handle it when it happens? What do you like about that pattern? Is there anything you'd like to do differently?

v. Acknowledgment

In addition to my own introspection, these concepts, thoughts, and strategies are an amalgamation of therapeutic techniques, Authentic Relating, and experiments with the collaboratory that I call Pod. ♥️

Through determination and encouragement, I persisted, and slowly started to see the fruits of my labor. These days, my muscles are defined, I trust my body more, and working out can actually be fun!

But this post isn't actually about working out. It's about the power and necessity of repetition. There are so many things in life that take consistent effort to build, even when the going is slow. Take my Twitter presence, for example.

To make my Twitter presence the connective, interactive experience I wanted it to be, I had to commit to posting every day, refining what worked, and not giving up when things were slow or I got frustrated.

The place I've been thinking about putting in the reps the most, though, is in relationships: friends, partners, clients. I can get together with these people for an intensely fun time a few times a year, but it's hard to build anything with that limited frequency.

I have a group of best friends – I call them my Pod. The 6 of us, who all live in different parts of the country, came together about 2 years ago. After some stops and starts, we decided to commit to daily communication.

Not because it was fun all the time, or even easy. But because we had shared values and a desire to build together. We put in the reps on our friendship, and now I have a rock-solid group of emotional technowizards with whom I navigate the world.

And in this time of crisis, I'm getting to put in the reps in a way I haven't ever before: with a select handful of clients. Previously, when my clients and I parted ways after a date, our communication was very minimal until the next time we planned to see each other.

But now, with in-person dates off the table, I'm getting to talk to these clients every day. I'm getting to hear what they think about every day, see how they're doing on a random Tuesday evening, so many special moments I might miss otherwise. And it's incredibly rewarding

I'm getting a much more detailed picture of what it's like to be them, and we're getting comfortable together in ways we couldn't have been before.

I believe that relationships are all on their own time journeys, and pushing them to a level of intimacy that doesn't actually suit them can be detrimental.

But for the relationships that are ready for it, having daily communication allows us to build in ways I never thought possible in a client-companion context. When social distancing ends, I believe our relationships will emerge stronger and more meaningful.

So here's to "putting in the reps" and to the people who join me. <3

Original Post

Virtual Dad Bod Inspector @shae_ashbury

2019: there’s no place like home 2020: there’s no place but home

My Retweet

So accurate. All I wanted in 2019 was a few consecutive weeks in my apartment. Now, I'm all but begging to return to my jet setting lifestyle.

My reflection

I want to talk about class signaling. When I wrote this retweet, rather than talking about my love for travel, or say, missing my trips to NY, I talked about my 'jet setting lifestyle.' Instead of being authentic, I tried to project an image of myself.

Yes, Twitter is partially a marketing platform for me. But as I engage with you all more authentically, I want to use my tweets to practice and share my values. And one of my values is not using class signaling to gain social standing.

As I work on this sort of behavior in my personal life, I find it all too easy to engage in it on Twitter. Why is that?

Well, certainly a handful of insecurities and imposter syndrome. But I think my motivation is bigger than that. As a companion, I want long dates. Not because I want lots of money (though that's true) or to go on adventures (though that's also true).

It's mainly because my goal as a companion is to develop meaningful, long-term relationships that soothe, heal, and empower my clients.

One of the main models of signaling this sort of spawling, adventurous relationship in SW marketing is class signaling. And personally, I don't want to participate in it anymore.

So I'm calling myself out, and making a commitment. While I may have an authentic affinity for things that code as high-class, I commit to talking about them from my personal experience, rather than trying to project an image of myself.

Since joining this industry, I’ve run into countless sex-working sisters who exist in a universe where there is tension between their work and their desire for long-term relationship. Sisters who despair of finding a partner who is ok with their work. Sisters who feel they have to actively conceal their work from their partners. Sisters who retire out of pressure and manipulation from their partners, rather than a desire to move on. Sisters who are coerced by their partners into giving up their stability, both financial and career-wise, with nowhere comparable to land.

And nearly everywhere we go, we’re told that this is reasonable. Default society tells us that our work is shameful and damaging; how could a partner be ok with us continuing? We go to brunch with other sex workers and witness or participate in bemoaning the perceived chasm that separates us from supportive partnership. Even our clients (most, not all) seem to hold the reality that if we want marriage, we’ll have to give up our careers.

I’m here to tell you: This is utter bullshit. Yes, sex work is taboo. Yes, it contains fodder that can ignite insecurities and jealousy. Yes, it involves logistics that can be difficult to navigate. But you know what? None of this is insurmountable. There plenty of potential partners (even partners who are men!) ready to embrace you and your sex-work. There are also many open-minded potential partners who don’t flag as sex-work-positive because they haven’t yet had exposure. If you approach dating with the expectation that you should be accepted for who you are and what you do, you will be.

And if you’re not able to find partners who can meet you in your sex work, you’re probably looking in the wrong places. The caveat: You need to be doing your personal work, too. You need to be confronting your insecurities, challenging your assumptions, and pushing your edges. You need to be prepared to support your potential partner in their full personhood, the same way you want them to support you. You need to strive to love both yourself and your partner by holding carefully considered boundaries with strength and compassion.

You can have it all. You can have a committed partnership with someone who loves you for you, and actively supports you in your life and career. You just need to be prepared to do the same for them. Don’t. Settle

If there are any fellow SWs of any gender/orientation struggling with these relationship dynamics, you are welcome to contact me for a counseling session. I have a lot of experience navigating love-in-action, and feel called to offer support.

I honor you

You Kings, especially those who rule humbly and quietly, from the background

You Warriors, those who fight with honor, in the world and within yourselves

You Magicians, who work tirelessly to study and hone the secrets of the human universe

You Lovers, who brim with vim and vigor and connection to the world around you

But especially

I honor you little boys. I know you’re in there. Adventurous and impatient. Hurt and neglected. Ready to learn, ready to wrestle.

You are all welcome.