Backwoods Sex and the Ballad of Stormy Daniels

by Ernestine

In callus neglect of my mental health, American news is a train wreck I can’t take my eyes off of. NPR and “Pod Save America” are the soundtrack to time spent in the kitchen in my household. Being half Italian, this is not an inconsiderable amount of time.

The coverage of the hush money trial of Trump has long been an interest of mine. After the Access Hollywood video came out during the 2016 presidential campaign, a republican client had his hand inside me and quoted, “What did he say? ‘Grab ‘em by the pussy’?” The casual rapiness of the former-president-convicted-sexual-assaulter (it’s amazing to me how few Germans know this) who would deprive the US of its first female president normalized sexualized violence to an extent that it rippled through the sex working population and caused havac for no small number of us.

You can, therefore, imagine my immense joy, the most succulent Schadenfreude, at the prospect that the person who finally sends Trump to jail may be a porn star. A member of the proverbial sisterhood. It fills one with pride.

Stormy Daniels gets all manner of mud slung at her from the press. To put that to bed and prove to the unenlightened her awesomeness, I quote from her memoir (a little gem I read in three days flat):

“I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart... It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.”

 As I said. A fierce lady, entrepreneur, stripper and porn actor much more successful at business than certain inheritors of Daddy’s millions; an all-around hottie badass.

But the mud they’re slinging at her now, in an attempt to discredit her testimony in the hush money trial—that strikes a chord with me.

It is encompassed in one word:

“Extortionist.”

Bear with me for a moment as I transition into a story about a man I once loved.

Once upon a time, when I was living in Vermont and proffering my silky-skinned wares in Boston, a successful Tinder date turned into a whirlwind romance. What clinched it was his bathtub. He lived in a tiny cabin in the New England wilderness. The cabin had a cast-iron stove, and the outdoor claw-foot tub had a tiny fire pit dug underneath it so that, on a snowy winter night illuminated by an uncountable number of stars, we could luxuriate in the steaming water, our bodies intertwined under a moon glinting off fresh snow. I’m a sucker for that shit.

And once I fall, I fall hard, so, in this case, I tried to ignore certain warning signs.

We were two weeks in and had both said “I love you” (I was young, ok) before I told him about my career. This did not go well. I somehow agreed to play a game whereby he would try to pretend this was not the case until he couldn’t anymore. This was, of course, a silly plan—as evidenced by his pained facial expression whenever I extended to him the benefit of my clients’ frequent presents of fine wines without reavealing their origins. (Oh Ernestine, I think to myself in retrospect, what a waste of good wine! He was a beer man anyway!!!) It got to the point when, whenever wine appeared, it would be a sour evening, even if I had bought it myself. This was not aided by the fact that he was an alcoholic. (I know, I know. I’m sure you were also once young and dumb.)

My first hint that the end was nigh occurred, interestingly enough, in the bedroom. Our usual “Who is ax murdering that woman?” sex ebbed and was exchanged for barely three pumps before he was expended. His body was literarily telling us both “I can’t do this anymore,” even though he wasn’t brave enough to say it out loud.

He had often asked me if I would try anal sex with him. I had always said no, but then one day I had been experimenting with my vibrator and was feeling GGG, so I broached the subject and offered him satiation of his erotic request. Rather than the delight and gratitude, which, in any fair universe I was owed (and which my clients readily proffer when presented with my alabaster ass), his response was,

“What happened today at work, that you’re suddenly up for this?”

This devolved into a fight, in the course of which abusive things were said, mainly in relation to my career. At the end, he somehow thought there was going back. That he could apologize and not get kicked out into the snow. But even my young, love-sick puppy self knew there was no going back after this particular cat was out of its nasty rhetorical bag. The thrust of it? (I paraphrase. I’ve blocked most of it out):

“You’re an extortionist.”

“Excuse me?”

“You lie for money. You must be a liar deep down. Surely you lie to me.”

And this, my friends, is the same calculus as the lawyers of the man Jon Stewart once called “the saddest tangerine.”

The strategy hinges on anti-sex worker misogyny of this particular flavor: Prostitutes are liars who lie and make money and then later lie about who they’ve had sex with.

I won’t insult your intelligence, dear reader, by explaining why this is a fallacy that unnecessarily deprived me of some fine backwoods cock. Suffice it to say, anti-sex-worker misogyny is alive and well in my country of origin…which is one of many reasons I plan to reside in the company of you fine German people for the foreseeable: Because, while this country might deprive me of a flat or bank account because of my job, there is currently no such buffoonish kangaroo court in my adopted homeland, and, while she is not perfect, I therefore find her comparatively promising.