avery (sw)rites !

after several years of careful thought, my partner and i decided earlier this year to shift gears from 'might like to have a kid someday' to 'we are trying to have a kid.' my partner is a transwoman who has been on hormone replacement therapy for years. the research on couples like us trying to conceive is nonexistent- there may be one study on it. that is the topic for another day, but the essence of it here is that trying to conceive a child together has meant them going off of hormones and effectively detransitioning, for them. this is wildly uncomfortable for them, to stop passing, to feel their internal workings all off-kilter, and not to mention dangerous in these transphobic times. so, each cycle of attempts feels precious. we are careful to ease off the pressure we put on ourselves as best we can, but the fact remains that each cycle that doesn't get me pregnant is another month that they stay in this untenable position of detransition.

now, i have sex for a living, with people other than my partner and the occasional hookup. people whose babies i really, really do not want.

i would feel far more comfortable in this profession with an iud. not because i don't use condoms, because i always (ALWAYS (ALWAYS)) use condoms, and not even because i don't necessarily trust my clients to keep their condoms on (clients who remove condoms during sex, 'stealthing' as they call it, are summarily denounced as rapists), but because condoms are fallible objects!

so, i don't want to get pregnant by anyone except my partner, and accidents happen. so! i don't have sex certain times of month. it's not my favorite, to turn down clients during that time. the money is always tempting, a little voice in my head saying 'oh, but the chance is so slim that anything would happen.'

and then i remember when it did. it was a few days before my go-time of ovulation. a client with no interest in foreplay and quite a girth on him meant copious application of lube on and in me, which, instead of facilitating the process, for whatever reason sucked the condom right off him. the condom stayed stuck inside of me, not like a sheath but all up in me. he apologized profusely and i kept my smile on as i excused myself to the bathroom and then, as i fished it out, realized this cycle was shot. i would have to get fully tested and, probably, take a plan b. he hadn't come in me. i shouldn't be ovulating. but what if. what if. what if.

my partner was devastated. it felt truly awful to have to admit it to them. it felt truly awful to take the plan b, not only because of the sense of failure, but because it resulted in an immediate period, when i would have been ovulating, and then another period, when i was supposed to have a period. in between, my ovulation sticks i'd been peeing on had said i had ovulated, so we had tried again. it was a mess.

so. i make the best of only working 3-ish weeks a month, variable according to when i'm ovulating.

i've taken to aggressively promoting my 'full-body sensual massage' during that time. it's less money but there's no penetration and more often than not it leaves them wanting more and returning for full service.

i also have developed a slight kink for denying client who are desperate to fuck me and not specifying why. 'oh, i'm not offering full service right now.' smiles sweetly. clients who have never before gotten a sensual massage- who are willing to pay more for full service!– find themselves booking a massage with me because they've worked themselves into a tizzy about me, for some reason or another.

so, this is my normal. i am desperate to talk to anyone else who has ever gone through this, sex workers and/or polyamorous and/or promiscuous people who are trying to make a baby with just one other person but have not necessarily stopped having (conception-possible) sex with anyone else. i feel pleased with where i am, but also a bit baffled, for both me and my partner to be juggling external considerations, transness, sex work, and their accompanying transphobia and whorephobia in the world, just to have a kid together. we'll see.