Tonight I woke up a little weird. I was doing some processing on Twitter. I got a few DMs from someone telling me I have to “just stop the whore thing because you are hurting me because I was a whore”. My response was, “I don’t know you. I don’t know your story. I’m not talking about you. I’m working through my stuff. If it hurts you, opt out. Don’t tell me to stop.” So I got a block. That seems appropriate.

I’m not mad at being blocked. That is the right choice. If I bother you… block me. Yes I have problematic behaviors. Yes, talking about the “whore” thing is hard and tricky. But I’m not talking about you. I go to lengths to make it clear I’m working through an emotional existential thing and I’m not talking about sex work or sex workers. I’m talking about my issues and associations and history with the word whore.

If you tell me I can’t process… you are saying I can’t get over it. You don’t want me to get over it. You want me to be silent. I don’t owe you that. If someone I was very close to needed to ask me for boundaries, that would be different.

If I defaulted to silence on every topic that might upset a stranger I should just wire my lips shut and be done with it.

I give trigger warnings because I know these topics really upset people. Hell, they upset me. But I can’t pretend this isn’t happening to make you more comfortable at the expense of myself.

I don’t owe you that.

Literally, my Twitter bio is a long trigger warning. That’s all it does. “I talk about upsetting stuff like _____.”

Given that my father called me a whore so many times… I have stuff to work out there. Even if other people have different stuff to work out. I’m not trying to tromp on your issues. I’m trying to work through my head. If that is a problem for you, opt out.

Don’t tell me to stop doing the work. I really need to do this work.

She came back to tell me that I am a SWERF then blocked me again.

I’m pretty clear that what is going on here is not all about me. There are layers here. I don’t want to erase the experience of sex workers. I don’t want to eliminate their rights. I think sex workers are people who have jobs. I think I was abused and I’m trying to rewire my brain and that requires me to talk about the ways I was abused.

I don’t think that other people who identify as whores are bad. I think that I have an association because of my father that I need to change.

I don’t know how to do that in silence.