I'll be your Prostitute whenever you want me

This week’s blog post is a very sad tale of social naivety and Government sedition.

There once was a single, independent woman who had a job, lived alone in an apartment and had lovers over for her pleasure. Sometimes they were the same lovers; sometimes different. The one constant was that they arrived; pleasured her and left. She was satisfied, they were satisfied; and the Government imposed no financial penalty.

However, the independent woman met “hot minute man” (Remember him from an earlier post? And he’s not “hot minute man” because it’s all over in a “hot” minute it’s because he’s impetuous and makes life-changing decisions without thought to the cost. More on that in previous posts or later……..) and decided to take him in to share her space.

All was fine. They kept all monies separate: paid half the rent each; half the bills each; shared food bills and eating out. Ever so often they even leapt into each others beds and let their libidos run wild across fields of tinglingly erotic flesh.

They were CAREFUL. They knew the RISKS and the RULES.

The woman was always one to accept a dare. So when “hot minute man” said, “I know you’ve got ‘issues’ but when you’ve dealt with them we can get married”. Well, that was a dare. What were her ‘issues’? Could she name them? Were they important?

Marriage had never entered her schema. She had always kept that part of life’s progression out of her life plan because the thought of marriage and disability were things she couldn’t bring together. Getting an education, becoming independent, working, having lovers, they fitted with disability but she had never brought marriage to the front of her thoughts because it required ‘another’s’ acceptance of her as she was, who she was. She had not considered it.

The surprise of the offer was a shock [see “Objection”] and she could not gather her ‘issues’. She said “yes” and the die was cast. The decision was made on a hot and heady January night in the tropics where the perfumed gardens and intoxicatingly fresh smell of soft summer rain and the topical environment did not foreshadow prostituting herself to him when the Australian Government deemed that he took possession of her by marrying her.

………..skip wedding plans, preparations and the fateful day…………

Freshly back from a frightening honeymoon where the true realisation of what they had done began to sink in.

When they went to tell Centrelink – it hit them like a shotgun blast and the pellets of their foolish ignorance of Government rules and societal expectations tore their tender flesh and caused their hearts to bleed.

He had a part-time job so she kept some entitlements to independent income. But his job changed; his income increased; until Centrelink passed all responsibility for her over to him. She became (in the fiscally, patriarchally cold and calculating eyes of the Government) his possession, to keep and provide for.

She could not be a waitress, cleaner or do menial jobs – which she would have – as the disability prevented her from taking up these occupations. In her head, the words of the Clout song “Substitute” rang out loud and long, but now days she substitutes the word ‘prostitute’:

I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me

Because the Australian Government has made her so. The Australian Government has declared that if someone with a disability dared to live with someone – and have sex and sleep with them – then the able-bodied wage-earner becomes financially responsible for the person with a disability. The Australian Government does a very good job as a “pimp” and makes a tidy saving. It the case of these two people, taking into account the earnings from the job she got, the Australian Government saves $10000 per year.

She tried to put it behind her. He tried to put it behind him. They moved on.

She got a job which she really likes and intends on keeping.

However, had they not got married; were he employed to care for her and take her on outings, she would be entitled to over $10000 more per year from the Government.

As with all good gothic tales of dark and gloomy outcomes, there’s an ironic twist here. As well as losing $10000 per year by being married, or “living in a marriage-like relationship” she also loses access to her Pensioner Concession Card. This means she cannot purchase medication (and she needs a lot, with degenerative hips and INTENSE pain) at a reduced rate, but losing the Pensioner Concession Card also mean that she loses eligibility to the $12000 to $15000 wheelchair that she uses to independently mobilise.

Thus because they cannot afford the medication and the power-wheelchair: she becomes the archetypal trapped chattel sitting at home waiting for he whom the Australian deems as her ‘provider’ to come home and “have his way with her”

Is this not the Australian Government stripping all people with disabilities of their rights to ‘freely’ enter into sexual relations?

Oh no, only once a week “we have disabilities and do not want to become dependent”!!!

Is this not the Australian Government stripping this woman of her rights and prostituting her to the man?

She says in her head:

“I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me………..

John Howard says you have to pay for pleasure from me”