Ditching the dirty job

As regular readers will know, I have for the past few weeks been working as a phoneline tarot crad reader. Unfortunately, I have reached the conclusion that I cannot continue with this line of work due to a couple of things that seriously conflict with my Christian and feminist convictions (hence "dirty job" in the title). Thankfully, because I was technically self-employed and not earning nearly enough to affect my Jobseeker's Allowance status, I will not be penalised for quitting.

The basic problem, which conflicted heavily with my feminism, was that all the callers I received were women, who amost always wanted to consult regarding "relationships". I don't wish to belittle these women, but they all gave the impression of being rather desperate and slightly unhinged, and for them "relationship question" effectively boiled down to one of two questions: "will I find a Man soon?" or "will my Man come back to me?" (allowing for numerous variations on those two themes, like "Is this Man the One for me?" or "Is he thinking of leaving me?" - which sometimes included "the Other Woman")

This was a major conflict, bcause my inner feminist, during the course of a 4 hour shift on the phoneline, would by the end be yearning and screaming to respond like this:

For heaven's sake, pull yourself together, woman! Dump his arse, and go out into the world and live for yourself instead! Stop obsessing over some jerk and get on with your life! Have some self-respect!

Obviously, I couldnt say that (despite how urgently these women seemed to need someone to give them that advice). These women weren't ringing a tarot phoneline to have someone give them the blunt honest truth all Northern-fashion: they're ringing it to get reassurance and comfort. I did my best to give good solid advice and not just feed whatever fantasies they wanted to build up, but I felt an obligation to the customer to do so gently and not give them the full force of my convictions. I hope that I have done some good out there in the world by my words.

My Christian ethics were put to the test by the surprisingly large number of calls (I would estimate about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total calls I've taken) that were from women with a specific variation on the "will my Man come back to me?" question, which took the form of the caller being the Other Woman, having an affair with a man married to someone else. Invariably, this took the slightly clichéd soap-opera storyline that the affair has been going on for a while (several years, in many cases) and Ms Caller wants to know if/when "her" Man is going to dump (i.e. divorce) "the Wife" and come and shack up with Ms Caller permanently.

It may seem like a strange thing for a strongly sex-pozzie dude like yours truly to find morally unacceptable, especially when I have always said "blame the man, not the hooker" when it comes to women who say that prostitutes are leading husbands astray. But, as Renegade Evolution says, intimacy is in the head and the heart, not the crotch: a prostitute's business is to provide a service - true, a very intense and physical service, and one that is often associated with intimacy, but ultimately there is as much desire there to "steal" your man as a hairdresser or masseuse has. But these callers know that the man they want is already married to another woman, and has made vows to that woman of a solemn and binding nature. Furthermore, she is explicitly trying to "win" his heart and mind as well as his cock from this other woman (and indeed, we may surmise, win his wallet as well). It is a strategy designed to cause emotional pain to someone else, through sheer selfish desire. It is this that makes "lust" a deadly sin in my eyes, and lust that does not carry this selfish willingness to cause pain is no sin at all.

Of course, my greatest anger and disdain are reserved for the men in these situations. It is clear to me that if they were ever going to honour their promises to their "bit on the side" to dump the wife and shack up with them, then this would have happened a long time ago. Very often from the accounts that the callers gave, I was able to see clearly that this was indeed a man who was stringing her along so he could get to keep on fucking her, or if not that then leeching off her emotional connection. Make no mistake, I always read into the cards the message that she should dump him (See the highlighted passage above! Although as I said, I never put it quite that bluntly...) However, very often when the call ended I felt certain that my advice would be ignored.

Such addiction to "a Man" and more often, to the idea of a Man, I suppose I was dimly aware that it existed, but it had the same connection to me as, say, heoin addiction. You see it in dramas on television (e.g. the movie Trainspotting) and you read about it in the news or on television documentaries, but it's never impinged on my life. But now, this addiction to "a Man" has been brought home to me clearly. And it's something that I, as a feminist, find really hard to process. I mean, I have some idea of the social theories in feminism to explain it, but the sheer visceral depth of this addiction as I've encountered it through these phonelines has shocked me. How can gender liberation ever be achieved when there is that to contend with?

**sigh**

As I said before, I hope I've done some good. But I think for my next job relating to these counselling skills it will have to be something where I can speak more freely from my feminist (and Christian) perspective, with the agape-love** that has guided me so far.

**I steadfastly refuse to call agape, "Christian love" because it seems to me that Christians do not have a monopoly on it, and there are also plenty of people who call themselves Christian, who display none of it to those in most need.