by CHASE KELLY OF SURVIVE THE CLUB
"Only whores wear those, you’re not getting one,” my grandfather barked at my grandmother when she begged for a gold cross to wear on her neck. This was back in ‘66, twenty years before I was born. Gram only told me this story after I bought my first cheap gold-plated cross at a trinket shop in 2012. She knows what I do for a living. “Pop would have known about whores and their fashion choices,” I joked. He spent his life as a long haul trucker, I’m sure he met a lot of sex workers. I bought my little Christian trinket because it looked slutty in a very “save me” kind of way, the particular way that men who fantasize about themselves as heroes get hard for. Pop and I agreed on most things, except I think looking like a whore is pretty cool, and I was getting good at monetizing it. Early on Sunday shifts at the club where I worked, the church ladies would bring in religious pamphlets and Christian propoganda disguised as care packages. They hated us. They were coming to our work so they could position themselves as experts on our business so they could leverage the cities to shut us down. “If you don’t want me at your Sunday service in lingerie, please don’t come to mine with pamphlets!” I’d say while adjusting my g string. “I’m an atheist.” We did not need roses, lip gloss, or an opportunity to be saved. We needed money.
