Why I Love Being A Whore

I love being a whore.

I’m not talking about my love of sex work (although I do love it.) I’m talking about the particular word, “whore”. Or in the Scottish pronunciation, “hooooorrr” – which has a depth of feeling, a juiciness, that I particularly relish.

Although I understand that in the US, meaning has shifted somewhat away from sex work and more to meaning of “a woman who has a lot of sex”, in the UK the meaning of being paid for sex is still the primary one. It also lends itself to idioms like “I’m whoring myself out for X work” from professions unrelated to sex work – typically creative professions such as writing, where one might be expected to nobly sit and create art for art’s sake, rather than being paid a (somehow unethical) wage for a fair day’s work.

The implication, of course, being that when you are being paid to do something you love, you’re not creating your best, or truest work. The minute you accept money, the thinking goes, you immediately lose power, and put it in the hands of the buyer. Thus, if you’re a painter, you can be required to paint some hideous Norman Rockwell-esque happy valley shit, when your little artistic heart yearns to actually be creating scenes of death and misery.

Well, fuck that. Being paid to do work does not make that work somehow artistically (or morally) lesser. On the contrary, I would say that being paid allows you the freedom and space to explore whatever you’re offering for sale and create a truer, more authentic experience.

But! I wanted to talk about the word whore, not the actual experience of sex work.

A History of Whore

A short amount of research will tell you that the word “whore” actually has very ancient roots, in proto Indo-European language. This is a language spoken perhaps by our distant ancestors as homo sapiens, or possibly it’s a language that arose after our diaspora, as a species, from Africa. At any rate, the very root of the word is “ka”, which means “desire”. It’s survived in Gaelic cara, for friend, in Welsh cariad, “sweetheart, darling”, and in various Romance languages as cara, caro, cariad – “dear”, “darling”. It is also the root of the Latin word for matters relating to the heart, cardiac.

From there, the word has gone into Old High German and arrived in the UK as “hoer” or “hore” and was commonly used as a term for an “unchaste” woman or an adulteress (another word I love!)

Shakespeare was fond of it and it’s from his time (16th century) that we see the shift of spelling to add the “w” to the front of the word. That is then further reinforced by references from the Bible (although in the US more modern editions frequently replace the word with “harlot” as being supposedly less offensive.)

Other Words

There are plenty of other words and terms which refer to sex work. “Prostitute” tends to be the “technical” or “legal” term, and thus has a sense of the clinical about it, which I dislike. “Working girl” is a common euphemism in the UK, and whilst I like the informality of it, I dislike the infantilising “girl” part. “Sex Worker” is a common term and I like that it covers a variety of professions, from stripping to actually exchanging sexual intercourse for money, but again it’s quite emotionless and clinical. “Escort” is very commonly used (possibly under the influence of one particular, massive website in the UK) but to me feels coy and euphemistic. We’re not being paid to “escort” anyone anywhere – we’re being paid for sexual services. “Brass”, “Tom”, and “Harlot” are all good old British terms, but they are regional and lack the savour of “Whore”.

Of course for the “high end” workers, we can also consider courtesan. I see this used a lot by punters who believe that by paying a lot of money, they are somehow elevating their sex work experience to a level where it’s not sex work. Dream on, dreamers!

Versatility

“Whore” can be a noun, a verb, or even an adjective (“That dress is quite whorey.”) As such, it’s incredibly versatile. I can refer to myself as a whore, say that I’m whoring myself, mention that “whoring pays my bills”, plus I can easily make portmanteau words: My earrings that I only wear on bookings become “whorerings”. My handbag that I take on outcalls is now a “ho-bag”. If I pop out for condoms and bed linen, I’m “whore shopping”. I have a separate set of bedding for punters, which I refer to as my “whoring duvet”.

Plus! I can refer to myself as being “a big old whore” or “Whorey McWhorePants”. I mean can you see that working with “Prostitute”?

Reclamation

For hundreds of years, “whore” has been used to put women in a box, to prevent them from using their bodies for manual labour in a way that men didn’t approve of, but still desperately sought. Now I’m reclaiming that word.* I intend to suck the juice out of whore until the juice is gone. I will be a whore, I will whore, and I will do whore things. WHORE.