Hustling for Self-Love
By: Jess Moor
Tags: Mindfulness, Sex Work, LGBTQ, Philosophy, Sexuality

Hustling for Self-Love

“Dollhouse,” by: Jess Moor

“You’re something special,” said my client Don, sliding into a navy sport coat. I watched him from the bed, still donning the lacey lamé stockings and garter belt from the previous evening.

“Have a wonderful day,” I responded, breaking free from an entanglement of white sheets. As I wrapped my arms around him, I wondered why he felt so distant. The faraway look in his eyes seemed to serve as an omen for an outcome that I wasn’t prepared to face.

Since high school, I’ve had an affinity for older men, a sort of gravitational pull, derived from my inability to fit in with the kids my own age. In junior high, I was the only person at school who was out and proud, which was a frightening trek for a 12-year-old black boy in a conservative town. I grew up in the Triangle area of North Carolina, among a family of fervent Pentecostals. I lost my virginity at 16, to a man that was two-and-a-half decades my senior.

At 16, I didn’t trade sex for money. Instead, I bartered my body for more ethereal concepts, such as: confidence among more socially adept peers, misconceptions about love and worth, along with the occasional dozen of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to placate my loneliness. Too easy to please for my own good. My technical introduction to the world of sex work came at age 19, after my first semester of art school ended, a financial aid shortage leaving me homeless in a city 24-hundred miles from home.

It was following this foray against societal convention that I realized my lucrative effect on the hearts — and the loins — of older men. Whereas, I’d always felt ostracized at school for my nonconformist personality, my peculiar nature was revered by those that were willing to purchase my company. This made the commodification of my affection a logical outlet for self-expression. Being coveted by benefactors that fed me with the golden crumbs of their wealth provided a safe place for me, in a world where my existence had felt forbidden.

I opened the door to a stocky woman with a gracious smile, ready to sweep the room of dust and detritus. She reminded me of my mother, casually dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt, but nonetheless dignified in the way she conducted herself. She walked as if possessed by a factory worker from Metropolis, on robotic feet, chin slightly elevated from an intrinsic nobility often perpetuated among those who — like my mother — have dedicated their entire lives to the blue collar vocation of serving others.

Service had led me to where I was on that day, the Intercontinental Hotel in Times Square. I’d been invited as a weekend companion for a man named Don, a venture capitalist who recently returned to the States, following a residency overseas. On my first date with the 50-year-old venture capitalist, we never made it past second base. He took me out for sushi and sashimi after watching me go-go dance at a bar in the Castro, San Francisco.

“I didn’t mean to intrude, but I wanted to catch a glimpse,” said the silver fox, his ice-blue eyes burning brightly against Irish skin.

“No intrusion,” I responded over the crowd. I’d changed into a mesh leotard, one that complimented my legs and showcased the glute workouts, newly incorporated into my fitness routine.

“From Rentboy,” he verified. Days prior, we began our correspondence on the infamous website that would fall prey to a government raid soon after, resulting in the subsequent shutdown of the melting pot for male escorts. “You’re an amazing dancer,” said Don, his Yankee accent thick and assertive. “Although, I do admit, this is the last place I’d expect to see someone like you.” He nodded his head, his eyes lingering, his body tense, his energy — all at once — contracting, yet fully engaged.

“Why is this the last place, of all places?” I asked, genuinely intrigued.

“Well, for one thing, you’re sober. How many manage to stay sober, while dancing all night at a bar?”

It was a good question, and “not many” was the answer. During my years as a hustler, I’d managed to pick up a vipassana practice, to which I’d become quite faithful. In addition to making me more aware of the polarities of reality (the false dual between forces of light and dark), it increased my sensitivity to external stimuli, especially alcoholic beverages or mind-altering substances. Later on, when a Buddhist mistress of the same style of meditation moved in across the hall from me, I gleaned valuable insight from our synchronistic exchanges. I came to understand that the guidance I sought in outward practice had been revealed within the caverns of my own heart.

For the first time in my journey as an escort, I was inspired to approach soul in tandem with the body; self-awareness became the foundation upon which my spirituality was built. Don became one of the first benefactors to embrace my conscious approach to sex work and started to explore the metaphysical perspective for himself, yearning for ways to imbue his material success with a deep-rooted sense of purpose and truth. We began using desire as a pathway to awakening, whereas it had once been feared and condemned as a weakness. Our time together became a sanctuary, a consecrated temple, where conversation, contemplation and intimacy were powerful outlets for communion.

Four years after my first meeting with Don, he reached out to me, insinuating a business proposition. Upon request, I sent him explicit compositions of my nether realms, self-portraits I shot in the apartment of a previous suitor. After a week of him ogling my photographs, he remunerated me with a 2,000-dollar apex of an allowance, rebooting the dalliance that had ended back when he moved to Italy with his wife and two children.

“I feel at home with you,” Don gushed from across the bed, as I reviewed the breakfast menu. The night before, we spent hours ruminating on eastern philosophical concepts, like vibration, chakra alignment and the deceptive glamours of maya. I professed my obsession with Osho and Alan Watts; we discussed my budding expertise in the fusion of sex and meditation, a form of magic, ascertained from years of research and practice. I persuaded Don to confess the type of details he’d never felt brave enough to discuss: his decade of marriage to a woman, the subsequent divorce, the co-parenting of pre-teen children. We discussed travel plans for the future, and for a moment we were headed towards something I’d always longed for — a permanent source of grounding and stability.

Shortly after leaving, Don texted me. “I want you to be mine.” Minutes later, he offered to rent me an apartment in New York City.

“Anywhere in Manhattan?” I inquired, my heart dancing to a giddy rhythm of its own. I took a pinch of the viscid honeycomb that resided beneath a glass covering on the dresser, a complimentary treat from the hotel.

“Anywhere,” he texted back with a row of pink hearts. A sudden frisson overcame me (part sugar rush, part thrill), but the excitement was quickly followed by grief. Somehow, I knew we were too good to be true — too good to last. The black rose of consternation in my chest bloomed like a portent.

Shortly after his departure, Don called a car to haul me off to JFK. As I was dropping my cell phone at the security checkpoint, I received an alert: two grand transferred to my account, with a note from Don: “Treat yourself to something special. You deserve it.” I nearly broke into tears on the way to my terminal. At 25-years-old, I felt more blessed than I ever did in the pews of my childhood church, in awe at this act of generosity that I was raised to believe wasn’t possible that this too was a form of God’s beneficence.

“Distance,” by Jess Moor

As a young boy, I was warned that — by being gay — I was opening myself up to grave danger, temporal, but especially metaphysical. I was taught by the church to believe I’d be shunned by the God of Abraham, that my peculiar nature would be a lifelong curse. I welcomed this danger as my daemon; I wielded the restrictions placed upon me as a road map of individualized will. I used my sexuality, my primordial disgrace, as a method of escaping my impoverished beginnings. To me, being born as a have-not — a person of color without social privilege — was a karmic noose that, in the haunting silence of solitary moments, threatened to snatch me back to origins of misfortune.

With Don, it wasn’t just about transactional intercourse; it was an opportunity to find redemption in an unlikely place. There was a mutual support that was extended, and it soared beyond the superficial or mundane. Not only did he remunerate me for my time, but he provided feedback on my writing, celebrated my aspirations, complimented my mind, and, most memorably, encouraged me to keep dreaming.

When I got the news of his cancer diagnosis, it broke my heart. I was sitting on the back porch of my best friend’s home, my spirit soaring to the sounds of an avian chorus; bluebirds were sprouted across the lawn, like winged blossoms, nature’s depiction of the joy I felt on the inside, until it was pummeled to dirt and root by a plague of bad news. When he revealed the extent of his illness and his treatment, I knew we’d never meet again, and that affected me in a way I didn’t anticipate. I lost the joy that I heard in the bluebirds’ harmony and, for a while, the turbulence was overwhelming. After all I’d poured into the arrangement, the universe was taking it away. I was being returned to the place I strived to escape.

A period of darkness inspired me to pay attention to the positive aspects of what I’d endured. I reminisced on the conversations between us, on the harmony we shared. I reminded myself of what a progression this had been from previous arrangements, where I may not have received the level of respect that Don showed me, which I deserved, even in this field of work. With these good memories, I befriended my sorrow in meditation and honored what reality had revealed through this lifestyle. I fell in love with myself — my entire self — the accomplishments and, especially, the shortcomings. Discovering peace, I wrote myself back towards the light.

Before meeting Don, I wondered whether I’d be accused of playing the role of a slave. Would others view me as a disposable boy-toy to the white man in power, a prey (or a predator?) of the appetites of older plutocrats who, without wanting to admit it, partake in transactions of fraudulent affection? Personally, I see reality from a more complex light: deeper tones, with vivid hues and broader strokes. If I’m agreeing to submit, then it is but a figment of my character, a materialized facet of my own imagination — a longing for knowledge of self, a quest for enlightenment — to be endured on my own terms, not on the terms of the men who want me, despite the cost.

Sex work allowed me to find a place in the world of relationships; it taught me compassion and acceptance for the complication of a human soul. For that, I honor the space it’s created in my world, not just as a transaction, but as a valid pathway to healing the heart. I am no longer in San Francisco, although I am still often supported by the intimate friends I’ve come to know along the way. While I may not appear to be much further from where I began, I feel different, more aware than I did in the beginning. Perhaps, that wakeful awareness is the grounding and stability I originally sought upon landing on this path. Either way, I am the hero and the villain of my own tragedy — flowing in harmony towards resolution — and that, to me, is plenty cause for celebration.