I wasn’t so much attracted as I was intimidated. When I started as a stripper in the late 90s, I was of course surrounded by beautiful and very naked women. Not some weirdo, just a human being trying to figure out how to live her life like everyone else. Along with having open conversations about sex, she was the first person to tell me that gay people were just people who loved differently.īut it wasn’t until I sat down with my very first boss that my misconceptions and biases were completely erased. She hated the way that her body, sexuality, and sex were shamed and made sure that I didn’t suffer the same hang-ups and insecurities that she had. She still identified as Catholic, but after my father divorced her she had mostly divorced herself from the most harmful and bigoted beliefs of that faith.
My mother and I moved to a tiny foothills town in California when I was 10.
