Looking back in my blog roll, I am reminded of how often I have written about various words used of me, including this one. So, this is not new, I’m well aware. Yet my thoughts have changed a bit, and my life always brings new experiences of these things. Likewise, some followers are new to my blog, and the earlier posts are so hard to get to. So, this may be fresh for some.
I have started to write this several times, and each time have gotten stuck, mostly because it seems people have strong reactions to the word — more so than other disparaging words — and also have a strong opinion about whether it is appropriate to me.
Being one who avoids conflict, I’ve approached this in fits and starts. I don’t wish to argue with anyone.
But I wish to note the people who somewhat easily call me a slut but are loathe to call me a whore. I am touched by their protectiveness, their feeling that “whore” is a bridge too far, too much of a slur for me to be shackled with. Thank you.
In fact, I am called a whore sometimes.
I accept that the lifestyle of D/s often includes name-calling, often for dominant effect or even as an unlikely term of endearment. There are times Amanda will say, “You’re just a cute little slut-whore, aren’t you?” to which I nod passively, and it is caring in the way she expresses it, sometimes with a kiss. Master McKenna has called me a whore in another context: one morning I served him coffee and he said, “You’re going to be my whore today.” It was a casual statement of dominant effect, not specifically spat out as a slur. I took it in stride, replying perhaps a bit too sassily, “And I wasn’t your whore yesterday?” He laughed.
So much depends on the context and tone with which it’s delivered. These are lighter, somewhat teasing, applications of the word to me. There are also those moments in the heat of sex when the vocabulary becomes especially pungent. Who knew there were so many available terms used about me during fucking? 😉
But even if people called me “whore” more directly and literally, while I would feel the humiliation of it, I don’t think I’d be deeply distressed by it. My point is that there is a kind of intimate language between a slave girl and her dominant that puts me in my place and becomes a linguistic way by which I am dominated.
Yet, as in a lot of my “word studies,” the question of “how I take it” is about if and how the word “whore” is literally true of me.
I don’t mean to get all “word-nerd” here, and I’ll keep it short.
The primary definition of “whore,” and the most literal meaning, is “one who engages in sex for money.” I’ll say more on this in a moment…
The secondary definition is “one who engages in promiscuous sex.” I have written before about this here. I concluded that some would look at my life and readily judge me as promiscuous, while others would not. I think I have over-written on this and am maybe too sensitive to it, so I’ll leave my promiscuity, as it were, for others to judge.
Interestingly, a synonym of “whore” is “courtesan.” This is one of my favorite terms, as readers well know. A courtesan is a Victorian-era role in higher society (court) which was a kind of royal friend, companion, socialite, concubine, and sexual plaything among the rich and famous. I think this is very descriptive of my life now, and what Amanda wants me to further become.
Of course, the word “whore” has more vile usages and associations. It sometimes references an “unclean harlot” and there’s always that nasty “whore of Babylon.”
For the record, I keep myself very clean. And I’ve never been to Babylon. 😉
No, I do not take money for sex.
That’s not to say there isn’t some truth to my supposed whoredom. Money has been exchanged between Amanda and Kevin in a rather complicated financial arrangement involving a house, a business… and me. Kevin, in his dalliances with me as his escort-girl, sometimes talks about “getting his money’s worth.” It’s a tease, and I take it playfully, but it tweaks the idea of my being paid for, and my being, at least technically, a whore.
In full disclosure, I did have an experience once in which I was paid, rather intentionally, for sex. I was under my first owner, Master Michael, who shared me, sort of, with a friend of his. They were up most of the night talking and drinking, and occasionally Master would “demonstrate” my slave skills and obediences. Much of that was not sexual until the wee hours of the morning when Michael suggested Edward take me into the guest bedroom. Edward was pretty out of it, and while he did play with me sexually for a short while, not much happened. He fell asleep. However, I did “sleep” with him, if just literally so, and in the morning woke up to an empty bed and money left on the night table with a note: “Thank you.” I soon found Edward and Michael in the kitchen making breakfast. Nothing more was said…
I learned later this was intentional — Master wishing me to have the experience of being paid for sex. Or at least the payment part was intentional — another time, Edward might wish to actually have sex with me…
The truth in that as in other contexts, I am not so deeply affected by the notion or intimation or suggestion of being paid for sex, even though I am not paid for.
This may be because personally I don’t think that taking money for sex is wrong or unseemly. I see it as being paid for a service. Like a massage, perhaps, or a manicure or a hair styling, sexual service is often simply about personal care. Sort of.
So, I don’t think sex work should be illegal. Thus, the term “whore” is not in my personal dictionary as a disparaging word. In fact, I even think it sits higher on the social scale (if we’re measuring such things) than “lifestyle sex slave.”
I think I came to this opinion in college. I had two girlfriends who wound up doing escort work to finance their education. For both, the work was actually enjoyable. they provided sexual release and pleasure to clients. at the time, because of the sway that my religious upbringing had upon me, I was never inclined to do escorting myself, although I could have used the money. To people I knew from home and church, such activity was severely judged — even if I myself accepted it more openly.
Perhaps there’s a meaning of the word “whore” that affects me more. It may be a definition farther down on the list: that of “one who pursues a faithless, unworthy, or idolatrous desire.”
I don’t consider my submissive life to be faithless or worthless, but many in the world I grew up in certainly would. Even outside of the religious community but still in the vanilla world, my sexual lifestyle is, I know, considered a frivolous pursuit of sexual craving, an idolatry. In that, I am easily considered a whore.
This, yes, gets to me, as it labels the very core of me — my submissive need and my slave life.
But, like I say, I don’t like to argue — I’m too submissive for that. And this is the bottom line: if some people consider me a whore, I accept it, on whatever terms they assign it to me.