2021 in review

Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I synthesize empirical evidence, stories, and personal experience to interrogate existing power structures to propose new, hopefully better, ways of relating. To support my work, buy a subscription, follow me on OnlyFans, or just share this post!

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I think for me 2021 was a lot about balancing actually occasionally leaving my apartment with keeping some of the things I appreciated about quarantine. This was a lot about relationships — with myself, other people, and my habits. Starting my OnlyFans and not going out enabled me to start saving aggressively in 2020, with the hope that in ten years I can no longer feel pressure to do any work that falls outside of my mission.

I was able to continue earning on OF in 2021. I collaborated with some amazing performers/artists like Marco Aguilar and Billy Procida. I started the Domme class (which is nearly done for me, I have a recording and a half to finish).

I continued to be more intentional about my time and relationships, not going out reflexively with whoever wanted to. I’ve better internalized how finite time is, and how few people I can really get to know in this life. I’ve continued saying no to people who are perfectly wonderful but don’t… to put it bluntly, make the cut at this time. This has given me more space for people who are what I need most right now. I’ve begun being more intentional about centering myself in my relationships. It’s been good to see that it’s usually to the benefit of everyone involved.

In 2020 I got into a habit of regular yoga practice (1-3x/week) and maintained it through 2021. I saw a chiropractor for the first time, which helped with some things and didn’t help others.

I was able to publish here semi-regularly. I outlined several books, including ones on decriminalizing sex work, the OF diet, shame, and being a sexvangelical. I got published in VICE, Bitch (a childhood dream), and Exponents. I was quoted in the Guardian and a bunch of other outlets. I got our DA to say he’s not prosecuting adult, consensual sex work cases. And I had a short-lived column for AVN. I started to focus in on sex work policy in 2020 and this year I started getting included in “Twitter people to follow on sex work” roundups.

When I began therapy in 2020, I would dream of living “perfectly.” I’d imagine myself producing tons of great stuff, eating right all the time, exercising every day, cutting out substances completely, etc.

Therapy taught me that a better goal for myself is living sustainably. Producing, eating right, exercising, and doing substances as much as I can maintain over the long-term. This helped me get off the cycle of being super strict about something and then falling off the wagon. Okay maybe not off the cycle, but the cycles are less severe now. I’m working on accepting that I cannot indefinitely maintain what I can do when I’m high on energy and things are going well in life. And that this isn’t a personal failure, but a reality. Everyone’s brains, bodies, and lives are imperfect and always in flux. There are times when things are easier and times when things are harder. It’s easiest for me if I try to maintain habits and goals that I can stick to when energy is high and low rather than having to get back on the bike and start pedaling again every time things get hard.

I would describe 2020 and 2021 as being about, among other things, making friends with my brain. I realized I’d always been afraid that if I didn’t hate myself, berate myself, judge myself, etc. that I wouldn’t be motivated to do good in the world. And these things are effective motivators. But they burn me up as fuel. I now more fully believe that if there is anything at my “core,” it includes a desire to do good in this world. And that this alone can be motivation enough to get things done. Trying to like myself is an experiment it took me a long time to recognize as a possibility and to gather the courage to attempt to run. But the results have been pretty good. I hated myself less in 2021 than ever before and I didn’t see any noticeable dip in productivity. If anything, I’m more focused than I’ve ever been.

In 2022, I want to focus on making friends with my body. I realized this year on a mushroom trip with some of my best friends that I’m still quite suspicious and fearful of and disconnected from my body. That’s something I’d like to change. It’s going to be an even longer row to hoe. Because as much as I disliked my brain, I’ve always spent a lot of time there. I knew her pretty well, or at least parts of her. My body feels much more like alien territory.

Besides that, I want to keep writing, doing sex work, trying new kinds of sex work, exercising regularly, being intentional about my relationships, and saving money.

I don’t feel the need to change anything radically or start anything new with the new year. Which to me feels like a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself. I’ve already begun the embodiment work. It feels like just keeping what works, tweaking what doesn’t, and continuing along a path that seems to be working out alright for me and for the world.