thechronicmasochist - Tumblr blog

[thechronicmasochist]

[thechronicmasochist]

they deleted my blog for days, for literally no god damned reason because I don't post shit, just long enough for me to create something different and get comfy with the anonymity over there/decide to move on from whatever the fuck is going on and now I'm back and still not entirely sure whether Im gonna use this blog or not.

They're definitely doing rounds of purges again though. Just a heads up. Really freaking ridiculous ones, too. I have to assume I got flagged just for discussing SW, since that's the only thing that could even possibly come close to touching the limits of their terms of use (it doesn't).

[thechronicmasochist]

I had a category ten autistic moment over a week ago and I'm still not recovered from it 🙄 social anxiety is annoying i just want to embrace my inner freak and move on

[thechronicmasochist]

happy mother’s day btw the adult children of emotionally immature parents book is free to read on archive.org

[thechronicmasochist]

Update: I have spent 3/6 days in the emergency room this week. I have now missed an entire week's worth of work, and am not healed or back to normal health yet.

I'm extremely worried for my next paycheck (or lack thereof)

If anyone wants to shoot me a few bucks, I'd appreciate it. Healing thoughts & vibes are also heavily appreciated.

Venmo/cash app: m3rmaidbynight

[thechronicmasochist]

there's such a cool flush of zombie literature coming out now that we're three plus years into this pandemic, and as someone with a morbid appreciation for dark shit and long covid i enjoy it

[thechronicmasochist]

your average cis feminist theorist from the 1970s doesn't hold a candle to what a random trans woman with barely a formal education can say about gender

[thechronicmasochist]

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

[thechronicmasochist]

"it's highly unlikely that (x) will happen to you-" buddy every single thing in my entire life has been 'highly' unlikely you're going to need to be more convincing than that

rlly fucked up that there's no way to explain "justified paranoia," because the system is set up to assume that people are lucky enough to not continuously experience statistically unlikely events every time they so much as breathe, so anyone who has learned to live in constant fear of the worst is obviously mentally ill and it absolutely can't be a sign of structural failure of course

[thechronicmasochist]

rlly fucked up that there's no way to explain "justified paranoia," because the system is set up to assume that people are lucky enough to not continuously experience statistically unlikely events every time they so much as breathe, so anyone who has learned to live in constant fear of the worst is obviously mentally ill and it absolutely can't be a sign of structural failure of course

[thechronicmasochist]

I can be getting better grades than I ever fucking thought I was capable of getting (especially when I can't take my god damned Adderall) and I'll still feel like any second the other shoe is gonna drop and I'm gonna lose everything and it's kinda eating me alive

[thechronicmasochist]

That thing where you think you've got stuff handled...

And then it turns out you really, really don't. Bills got covered, but what I didn't realize was that when my wife got stuck between gigs (like she has been the last couple of weeks) we wouldn't be able to get UI covered because of other factors. Which means we're without rent money, and need to try to scrape together as much of 2600 bucks as we can. (two adults, two kids, three bedroom apartment. YES, SEATTLE RENT SUCKS, IT IS KNOWN). So, asking again for help.

Wanna help out this pair of adorable dorks (and the cat. And the kids who I'm not about to post photos of) by donating? Go here: http://paypal.me/tormentedartifacts Or if you wanna get something for yourself and help out at the same time:

There's all this cool stuff available over on http://tormentedartifacts.com, all of which helps out.

[thechronicmasochist]

it brings me no joy to say that this artwork is a repost from 1 year ago...

Call your representatives, sign those petitions, and spread the word! The EARN IT Act is back, but so are we!

[thechronicmasochist]

Hi, I was looking at your blog, and I noticed the link to your website doesn't work, did something happen to it?

Yes! And by it, I mean me! I have decided to continue paying to reserve my domain name in case I regret this decision/need to come back to it, but I let my hosting service expire. For now I'm doing the very slow disengagement process which I think a lot of sex workers (past and present) can understand. (Thank you for asking, I've been waiting for someone to notice, honestly).

At the beginning of 2022 I decided I had to step back from sex work because it was destroying my mental and physical health in ways that I couldn't even fully understand while I was still living with the stress of it. I love sex work, and it broke my heart to see the work that I loved which was originally a safe-haven for disabled queers become completely unsustainable for me as a disabled person. When I stepped away, I'd originally intended to come back to it when I was ready.

Towards the end of March 2022, I caught COVID for the first time. as a "moderately" disabled person before that I'd been afraid of that happening for good reason, I'm still experiencing severe disability because of long-COVID symptoms.

Since then, I've also returned to college. I don't know if you know this, but employers are not big fans of sex workers. Sex workers have no legal protections against discrimination whatsoever, though one state has recently started making moves to change that it will not be an overnight process. Because I want to do more in my life than just sex work, I decided to make it at least slightly more difficult to tie my sex work history to my current life. All of my videos and such are still available on platforms, you can search for me on various sites and support me by buying content, but I'm not actively involved in any way and I'm not entirely sure how much longer I'll even be leaving that up.

I think eventually my site will go back up, and I'll start sharing more kink history and sex work history on it. I worked hard as hell to be able to get that site going, and I'm still committed to doing work with it. But, that's going to require me being ready to go through my platforms and removing my content, changing a LOT of pronouns on shit I wrote years ago, and being emotionally capable of seeing me perform as someone I'm not anymore. Until I'm ready for that, I'm here on Tumblr mostly observing and supporting my friends and learning from people I didn't have time to learn from when I was busy hustling every waking second.

[thechronicmasochist]

Hi! I was wondering if you could recommend me books, articles, essays, or whatever on queer history? like, any time or place (i want to learn as much as I can, but I need a starting place). and like, theory and history specifically by sex workers and kinksters?

if you don't want to dw about it, you can just ignore this message!

First of all, thank you for asking me about my favorite thing to talk about!! having the opportunity to encourage people to learn about this history is a big part of why I’m still here on this blog and it’s also a big reason for why I’m majoring in queer studies and want to become a librarian.

Awhile ago (some of you may remember) I put up a burner g—gle drive with a bunch of these texts, but the post that links to it is now impossible to find (thanks Tumblr) so I’m going to do this one a bit differently. This post is a bit of a mess, my brain is NOT in peak performance condition right now, but I didn't want to miss this opportunity to share either. I added headers, I'm not sure they help much though.

FIRST OFF, KINK:

For kink/leather theory and practice, I will almost always recommend starting with Leatherfolk: Radical sex, politics, people, and practice, edited by Mark Thompson. It is available on the internet archive here, you just make a free account and you can check it out. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781555831875 (I personally struggle with the internet archive’s lending model, I know I know I’m a bad aspiring librarian. I read quick, but I can’t seem to read THAT quick. So, in case you are like me, this is also available on libgen) Leatherfolk is great in that it includes pieces from both before and after the AIDS crisis, along with many reflections on the impact which the crisis had on the leather community and the community’s response.

From Leatherfolk, I recommend the works of Patrick Califia (who also published work under the name “Pat Califia” prior to his transition). I really liked Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex for its investigation into how we have pushed sexuality so far into the private sphere that we are inevitably losing our ability to express it and to find people who share our desires. Public Sex is not currently available on the internet archive, but you can find it on libgen. Patrick doesn’t have a site to pay him directly right now, nor are any of his works in active publication, which is unfortunate because he deserves money for his labor as his work has been pivotal to many kinky queers developing a greater understanding of ourselves, our history, and our community.

To understand the THEORIES of sexual deviancy and kink, I have leaned on the works of Gayle Rubin. Her theory of the charmed circle really helps explain how certain types of sex are heavily policed/politicized, and how certain groups fall further from the center of the circle than others. You can find Gayle Rubin readers on libgen, but she’s also been republished in many different feminist theory readers. I’ve found repubs of the charmed circle all over the place, honestly. There’s a really easy-to-read explainer of her sexual deviation theory in the book “Queer: A Graphic History” by Meg John-Barker and Jules Scheele (this book is very popular at libraries, so I’d start there for a copy if you can’t afford your own).

SEX WORK

Sex work heavily overlaps with the kink stuff, you’ll find discussions of sex work in most of these texts especially in Leatherfolk. For sex work specific research though, my go-to specialist right now is Melissa Hope Ditmore, whose works include Sex Work Matters and The Encyclopedia of Prostitution (available on libgen, but also PAY her if you can because she’s alive and deserves money for her labor). I’m currently debating shelling out for a copy of her newest book, Unbroken Chains, which is a look at human trafficking and I’m sure it is impressive because all of her research has been.

To get into the real lived experience of sex workers, I just finished “Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex” which was edited by Matilda Bickers, peech breshears, and Janis Luna. It was REALLY good. This one you’ll have to pay money for or convince your local library to buy (in my experience, they usually will). I bought my copy from PM press. https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1323

DISCLAIMER!!

If you’ve read this far, I want to make a point to address something which I know will come up if you do actually read some of these works. Specifically, I want to address the fact that our community and its history is imperfect, and very culturally contextual. The works of Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia have been both misconstrued and misguided in their attempts to make sense of the complex relationship between queer youth and queer adults. In the past, both of these individuals have made statements which suggest that they’ve supported relationships between queer adults and queer teenagers. Since then, both of these individuals have either/both changed their position on these issues or clarified that they did not intend to be supportive of these relationships. This is a really important piece of queer history, though. We cannot necessarily easily explain away the fact that for many queer youth in the past, the only way out of an abusive environment was to find a queer adult to take them under their wing. There were not as many ways for queer youth of the past to find and support each other. We are in a position now to understand more fully that this is not a healthy or appropriate model for a romantic or sexual relationship due to the inherent power imbalance, but anyone who wants to do research into historical queer/kink information will need to be prepared to encounter some “problematic” (I kind of hate that word) takes, and to be willing to think critically about the context in which those takes were reached. It is NOT okay for adults to have romantic or sexual relationships with teenagers/youth, but we have to be more willing to understand the ways in which those types of relationships have existed in the past and have even been things that saved lives in the past. Our history and the context in which it occurred will not go away, we can only seek to learn and grow from it.

[thechronicmasochist]

I'm so frustrated over money rn and so stressed about how I'm going to live. Customers have been shit lately and not tipping, work has been so slow or totally dead half the time. I'm falling more and more behind. I just got fucked over on what would've been a good order because the customer didn't answer the door and by the time I dealt with the return I lost money on it. I'm just so so so done right now with trying to survive. I can't even cover my expenses and I'm nowhere near able to build savings.

ANYWAY if you want to help me out my C*$happ is Eldritchh. Or tip me.

My other d*nation post is dead and ngl I haven't gotten any help yet.

I'm truly losing my shit rn.

[thechronicmasochist]

Friendly reminder that your delivery driver (DoorDash, GrubHub, Uber Eats, Instacart, etc.) is an independent contractor, not an employee.

This means that they are NOT being paid minimum wage; and on almost every platform they are not even being guaranteed an hourly rate as compensation for their labor.

In fact, base pay per order is minimal - most platforms pay their drivers just a few dollars. Think under $10 for an hour of work.

YOUR "TIPS" PAY THEIR WAGES. If you don't tip well, your driver is NOT making a living wage!

Furthermore, as independent contractors, they are held responsible by the IRS for paying their own Medicare and Social Security taxes which are normally paid by employers. This hikes their tax rates, meaning they keep less income.

Tip, tip, tip, tip well EVERY time, keep tipping.

If you cannot afford to tip well, you can't afford to use the services that delivery drivers provide. Because without your "tips," we can't afford to survive at all.