A poll, when you get a second

you have a full week!

You’re also welcome to tell me what you think in the comments, of course. And whether you’re burning for free nonfiction erotica or you wouldn’t touch such stories with armored gloves, I won’t take it personally. I’m just taking stock at this point in Hot and Disabled’s unfolding history, because it’s a scattered and prismatic affair that has, like everything else in my life, become something very different from what I’d originally envisioned.

Ultimately, I think that’s a good thing: Those of you who’ve been with me from the start may remember that it was one bitchy comment on the street that inspired me to bring this endeavor into being: a stack of such comments had been building all my life, and finally, it toppled all the way over. What we have here is the thoughtfully-made mess that resulted.

There was also a time, back in the ancient days of 2022, when I thought I was going to be making money as a copywriter-or-something in a downtown San Francisco office. Somehow, though, for reasons that will surely be as inscrutable to you as they are to me, none of those corperate people called me back! Not even the fun-loving we’re-all-about-diversity startups! What about me, I wonder, makes CEO’s and HR people doubt that meticulous attention to arbituary details as we all join together in urgently making sure this brand achieves its voice, which is a mission that really matters, is absolutely me?!

I don’t know, man. I own a pencil skirt. Apparently there’s a whole host of other things that are needed to deem me “fit for office work” that I don’t have. At least not in the eyes of the go-getters who have ruined the cultural fabric of enriched the economy of this city. And so, here I am, in what’s kind of my dream job, except that it’s not always a job I have the necessary emotional reserves to do, which is one of myriad reasons why I’m staking my future on MFA Fiction programs and an eventual Creative Writing professorship. There’s a plan here. It just took a while. Because untreated clinical depression really sets a motherfucker back.

In the meantime, people pay me to hear all the hidden-from-most-or-all-other-people-ways in which they are truly — my description, not theirs — intensely fascinating. A lot of times it’s hot. Sometimes it’s just strange. But every single time, it’s surprising. How much of it do you want to hear about? This will be concretely useful for me to know, and I’m curious how wide the range of interest is among my current subscribers.

Meticulous as I’ve been about keeping my birthname/Sarah Sunfire seperate from the name under which I stoke the embers of carnal delights as a scarlet woman, it does happen to also be the name I write erotic horror under. None of it is published yet (unless you count the micro-teases I occassionally post on my related twitter account) but it’s going to be, probably by the end of February. I can say this with some conviction because, due to even the indie-est publisher’s pervasive denial that there’s a hungry market for erotic horror, too many people specifically state in their guidelines that they will not take it. It’s a far better use of my time to make sure that this collection is a beautiful artifact that I’m proud of and to save querying and related matters for other projects. Unless one of you wise people makes a case for my doing otherwise, I plan to go with Barnes & Noble’s self-publishing imprint. They’re non-exclusive, so in the event that a publisher does express an interest to take it on, I can jump in without worrying about contract woes.

Publishing under my sex work name, though: is that wise? At the time that I decided to connect the two endeavors, I was thinking, simply, that she would be fit for both. (True!) I was also initially afraid to admit that I’m passionate about erotic horror or that I’m passionate about sex work. Neither are especially acceptable! My heart rate rises a bit just writing this, and that’s to my subscribers, who are literally here because you’ve decided, “Your thoughts are a thing I like.” Here’s a secret: While I am cavalier about being myself, I do live with a semi-constant fear that eventually, I’ll cross some line for a whole group of you and you’ll all be too disgusted to tell me what that line is. The fear has toned down, especially since my aunt subscribes and has not disowned me, but it’s still there. I live in this world after all. This world is not one that wants to see sex workers as sacred purveyors of the most delectable aspects of our spirit and means of connection. This world is not one in which everyone would appreciate my asserting that that’s what we are.

It’s always disheartening when I remember that there are more people in my life than not who I can’t talk about it with, because there’s no way the assumptions and associations even in their generally-open-minded heads can be undone by one person. Whatever I say, no matter how genuinely excited I get when I talk about it, they’ll think, desperation or last resort or throwing away your education. My education is what makes this fun! I have mastered the art of turning the conversation to general personal interest if I’m not in the mood to transform into your fantasy right then, and I even got paid a more-than-reasonable amount for some personalized writing. Dude Who Wanted A Story About (I’ll tell you if you want to know) seriously paid me more than most lit mags can afford these days.

And I can tell you without reserve that I have never adored and admired a group of coworkers the way I admire the shimmering Jezebels that make up our remote workplace. I’ve never encountered such easy eloquence or humor or effortless insight on commerce/capitalism/gender/personal agency anywhere I’ve worked: certainly not in teachers’ lounges!

So there’s the broad version, so worksafe it’s almost painful.

And no matter your views, all of which I’ll take into consideration going forward, thank you for sticking around.

Don’t ever ruin a crying face.