The Choice to Participate in the Soup of Offensive Ideas Makes You Stronger
At this point, most people have heard my tale of my early days as a homophobic dickface who, when confronted by a close friend who happened to be gay, worked through the fear and loathing to become a more decent human being (or at least a less monstrous, bigoted one).
I'm glad for the experience because it taught me a couple of things that have stuck over the years:
• Bigots can change if they want to.
• Lectures from strangers about tolerance are trumped by the disdain of someone you love.
• College is a place where being a stupid jackass who then learns to be a more educated jackass is the point.
Being an escort for me was like being a scrapbooker on Etsy for most other single moms trying to pick up some extra money. The only difference was that I could make a few thousand bucks for one hour of potential discomfort versus making a few hundred for several hours of suffering through handmade clip art. I’m a pretty open-minded person, but I cannot for one second believe that there is any joy in being hunched over a desk, cutting and pasting other people’s memories together. It seems so lonely and juvenile.