I’m Just The Messenger
I believe a whore is born every day, every hour, every minute, and every second. What is a whore? You may be surprised to find out that you are (or were) one yourself. Please. Don’t be so easily offended. Most of us are (or were) probably whores who either never knew it or couldn’t accept it. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a whore as, “a female prostitute” and “a woman whose behavior in her sexual relationships is considered immoral” (2022). The Britannica Dictionary defines a whore as, “… a woman who has sex with people in exchange for money: prostitute” and “… a woman who has sex with a lot of people” (n.d.). The Collins Dictionary, Macmillan Dictionary, Oxford Learning Dictionaries as well as the Wiktionary, Urban Dictionary and most other dictionaries are all in agreement when it comes to what defines a whore. I believe that, innately, we all know what number of sexual partners is reasonably considered a “lot of sexual partners”. However, we blur that number, in order to absolve ourselves of being justly labeled as a whore. Having two or more children with different mothers or fathers gets you rightfully labeled as a whore. (Or, in some cases, an ex-whore or a “retired whore”.) It’s easy to argue that two is not a lot until we consider circumstances. Growing two pimples on your top lip is a lot. Having two pinkies on one hand is a lot. Getting two traffic tickets in one day is a lot. The point is that, given the circumstances, two or more can be (and is) a lot. Having two or more children who all have different mothers or fathers is the beginning of a pattern. Particularly when you’re single and looking for another partner or have already found them. Besides the children, what about the sex partners we didn’t have children with? With or without children, most of us are or were whores once upon a time. It’s probably tough to hear but, hey, I’m just a messenger.
‘The Pot Calling The Kettle Black’
I think, oftentimes, we use others as a shield to cover ourselves from things we consider to be a threat. A ‘functioning alcoholic’ will point the finger at a ‘non-functioning alcoholic’ to defend themselves against being labeled an alcoholic. Their belief is that, because they go to work everyday, pay their bills and have never had a DUI or any other criminal charges, they’re not an alcoholic. The weed smoker and persons prescribed medications will point down at the ‘crackhead’ and meth addict as a means of defending themselves from being labeled as drug addicts. (It’s important to note that a lot of the prescription drugs contain active ingredients from street drugs. It’s also important to note that, if, as a weed smoker, you find that you become irritable, restless, unable to sleep, etc., if you haven’t smoked, you’re dependent on weed. Or, in lamen’s terms, you’re an addict in the same boat as the crack and meth users. You’d steal and whore yourself out, if that’s what it took for you to get your weed, you addict! You’re just like a crack and meth user.) Moving right along, a wife who withholds sex from her husband unless she’s getting the right amount of his money flowing through the house is hardly any different than the woman who sets the game aside and does a direct transaction. Let’s be honest. In either situation, it’s all about money and sex. If one isn’t flowing, neither is the other. The only difference is that one set of prostitutes and johns got married to each other while the other set didn’t. So often, we are or were the pot calling the kettle ‘black’. We point our fingers at others while we’re a mirroring image of them. But, usually, we don’t look in the mirror when we point at others. We look at the frame that our mirror is placed in and we use that frame as our defense to not being just like those that we point down at. The frame of your mirror may be roses and rainbows but it doesn’t make your mirror better than the one that has a visibly rusted, worn and broken frame. Like their mirror, your mirror is cracked, smudged and warped too. You’re both damaged, regardless of what you look like on the outside.
The Whore In Me
I’m a “retired whore”. I got in the game when I was thirteen years old and didn’t throw in my card until about eighteen years later, at the age of thirty-one. It actually happened by accident. Around thirty-one years old, life started to throw me a whole new set of curveballs. I got so caught up in trying to survive all the strikes I was swinging back-to-back that I didn’t even realize my ‘whore card’ had expired until about five years afterward. By that time, I had adopted a totally new mindset and just wasn’t interested in getting a new ‘whore card’ issued.
So, how did I become a whore? If you read any of my other published writings, you know enough about my childhood to know it wasn’t a happy, healthy one. I didn’t grow up with love, affection and healthy validation. I was verbally, mentally, emotionally, physically and sexually abused throughout my entire childhood. More than anything though, I think it was the abandonment and constant rejection throughout my childhood that really set me on my path to whoredom. My first time ever getting any type of validation and positive attention was from a guy I met when I was about eleven or twelve years old. I still remember how he didn’t jump away from me like I was the most disgusting thing on the planet. He also didn’t burst out laughing as though I was the funniest looking being he’d ever seen in his lifetime. (I was used to those reactions from boys of all ages.) Instead, this guy looked at me, genuinely smiled and said, “hey Miss Pretty”. That was the first time I could remember anyone ever telling me I was anything other than ugly. Of course, I became instantly obsessed with him and mentally obsessed over him for days and weeks. Seriously, when I woke up in the morning, he was my first thought. As I fell asleep at night, he was my last thought. Eventually, I found out who he was. It turns out that he was one of the most popular kids at school and his family was one of the most well-known and respected families in our small town!!!! He was a star on the basketball and football team as well as one of the lead drummers in the band. He was selected for homecoming and all the other cool stuff that only the popular kids get. Everyone liked him and all the girls wanted his Letterman jacket! He was so cute too. And it wasn’t his popularity that made him attractive. He was just a good-looking guy on top of being popular and well dressed. But, even knowing all of this stuff about him didn’t attract me to him more or less. I was already as attracted to him as anyone could be attracted to another person. What attracted me to him so strongly is that he noticed my presence. He noticed my existence. He noticed me in a way that didn’t make me feel like I should’ve never been born. Anyways, after finding out who he was, I got his number from someone and I called him. He answered the phone and he asked me, “you Debra January sister?” I said, “yes”. I had no problem being her sister and I was so completely GEEKED that I was talking to him on the phone that I wasn’t thinking about anything else! But, as soon as I told him that I was her sister, I heard a dial tone. I thought the phone had somehow disconnected the call by mistake. So, I called right back. And he picked up the phone and immediately hung it up. I was confused. It didn’t cross my mind, at first, that being “Debra January’s sister” could and would disqualify me from being of any interest to him. It totally disqualified me! While he was one of the most popular kids in school, I was, UNEQUIVOCALLY the most unpopular kid in school! It could never get around school that he was talking to me! Unintentionally, I started stalking him over the phone. I kept calling because I just wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to hear the voice of that guy who had noticed me that day and called me pretty. My love (and infatuation) for him quickly made him hate me. He was desperate for me to go away. One day, I called his phone number over one hundred times in a row. I can understand, now, why he was so desperate for me to go away forever. I remember how I used to write scripts out to read to him whenever he answered his phone. I wrote the scripts because, every time I heard his voice, I would get so tongue-tied and wouldn’t be able to speak properly. One day, even after spending hours writing scripts to read, he answered the phone (which, by this time, I wasn’t expecting him to ever do again!) When I heard his voice, I was so shocked and nervous that I couldn’t even see the words on the paper! So, I just blurted out, “I LOVE YOU!” Those three words explained everything I was feeling towards him. I remember him saying, “WHAT?!” And, I repeated, “I love you”, more calmly. He responded, “You don’t love me!” He said it in a way that said, “I don’t want that so take it somewhere else!” Afterwards, he slammed the phone down SO hard that it sounded like maybe he broke it. I could hear the anger and fury in the slamming down of his phone. It was something that I felt inside. I think it was in that moment, something else inside of me broke. I stopped calling him. Seeing him at school was so humiliating; I couldn’t look at him or even in his vicinity. Anytime I heard his voice or knew he would be in a certain area of the school campus, I would hide or run the other way to try my best to avoid the humiliation of his presence. I cried everyday for years, thinking about him. When I awoke in the morning, tears would run down the sides of my face as I thought about him. At night, tears would wet my pillow as I fell asleep thinking about him. At some point along the way, I vowed to N-E-V-E-R allow myself to be that stupid and vulnerable ever again! And I stopped crying. I remember that, at some point, I had offered him my virginity as a way to show how much I liked him. He had asked me what I could give him. He wanted money but I was poor and didn’t have any. So, that’s when I offered him my virginity. He said he did want it because he thought I would go back and tell people. Which he would be ashamed of.
About a year later, another guy in our school got my phone number somehow and called me. I was so ecstatic because no one had ever called my house for me. There was a guy who called my phone number (ON PURPOSE) and wanted to talk to ME! It was the second time in my life that anyone wanted to have anything to do with me! He told me that he wanted to sneak over and have sex with me. I heard, “I want to see you, be around you and spend time with you”. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity for physical contact and to be wanted in some way. I was used to everyone not wanting me around. No one wanted me until this guy called. So, he snuck over that night and I gave him my virginity. It was the night of my thirteenth birthday. By the time I was fifteen years old, I had, had sex with (at least) half the boys on my school campus. I couldn’t get enough of being wanted by someone (even if it was just for sex and even if it was for only ten minutes or less). In my mind, more was better. If one guy could give me ten minutes of attention, twenty guys could give me two hundred minutes! Being wanted and desired was my ultimate drug of choice! I had never had so many people wanting to be around me, close to me or in physical contact with me in my entire life. Around sixteen years old, I graduated from boys to men. It was a whole new high because the men had cars, money, drugs and alcohol! They also didn’t care that much about being seen with me which made me feel special. With the men, I wasn’t an embarrassment like I was with the boys. I loved being with the ‘dope boys’. They had the loud stereos, huge rims, money stacks and weed that never ran out! Any time a man took me to a hotel, I felt special. Because he didn’t mind being seen by someone and he didn’t mind spending money on a hotel room just to be with me. It meant he wanted to spend time with me. I also had all the weed and alcohol I wanted. Boys couldn’t afford that. With them, it was either them sneaking through my bedroom window, me sneaking into theirs or us doing a quickie in a car. I had outgrown that kiddie stuff and so, I started whoring around with men. By the time I graduated high school, I had over two hundred (maybe closer to three hundred) sexual partners on my ‘notch list’. The list consisted of mostly boys and men in my town with a few girls and women sprinkled here and there. Over the next fourteen years after my high school graduation, I’d have countless sexual partners. From Nebraska to South Korea, Alaska and back over to VA, plus places in between, I’ve had many sexual partners — both males and females. At some point, besides being driven by the insatiable high of being wanted by someone, I began to also be driven by the ‘conquer’ game. An extremely attractive person that, in my insecurities, I felt was way out of my league, was my target. I didn’t want anything but to know that I had, had them. After having them, they were tainted and useless to me because my goal was accomplished. So, I’d quickly lose interest and move swiftly on to the next target. I mainly targeted extremely attractive, successful men (i.e. high ranking military officers, top drug dealers who were well respected, men with high paying jobs and really nice houses). It made me feel validated. I could get the exact same men that all the “pretty girls” got. And, if I could get their man, in particular, it was even better! Sex had been a numbers game for me for a very, very long time. I had turned cold and all of them were just sexual objects to me. I (literally) thought males had no feelings and I started to treat them that way. Needless to say, I’ve left a few broken hearts in my past. Back then, I didn’t understand what the big deal was; I thought we were all playing the same game. Also, because I never saw myself as lovable, I never understood that a few of those guys actually cared for me. That was my mistake.
Do I Know How To Love?
One of my favorite songs used to be ‘How To Love’ by Lil’ Wayne. As I look back over my entire life and compare it to where I am now, no. No, I (still) don’t know how to love. Not in that way. I don’t know how to fully give or receive it, yet. Aside from the regular thoughts of how I’m not pretty enough, cool enough, accomplished enough or good enough, I now have the added thought of how I’m not clean enough. I have been ran through like the New York subway station. What man, having this knowledge of my past, could ever love me? And, having experienced a shattered heart for most of my life, what man could I trust with the most sensitive parts of me? Only Yahweh. If there’s an earthly man for me to build a family and life with, he’s only in existence by God Almighty’s own divine intervention and grace towards me.
I don’t know how to love … up close. Opening myself up and being vulnerable and available to give and receive that love, openly, terrifies me. It’s easier for me to stay distant and love (lightly) in secret. I don’t know how to allow myself to love hard anymore. I don’t know how to admit love anymore. I may feel it but, where I am in my brokenness right now, I don’t think I could ever speak those three words to a man. I’m not an affectionate woman. I hate the ‘lovey-dovey’ stuff. I hate the kissing, hugging and rubbing. I hate the flirting. I don’t understand the cuddling stuff. All of it seems like an invasion of personal space and it truly feels like a physical violation. It’s uncomfortable — very uncomfortable!
I’m comfortable having feelings for a guy as long as he never knows that the feelings exist and as long as I never have to admit them to myself. Let’s pretend that the love I’m developing is make-believe. Let’s pretend it’s not real. Let’s ignore this love and choose to believe that it doesn’t exist. It’s the easiest love to have — the love we never have to deal with.
The Life God Gave Me 