Healer, Witch, and Whore

Catherine LaCroix: Sacred Prostitute in Today's USA

by Sylvana SilverWitch

interview

Catherine La Croix has many faces: sex worker, sacred whore, ordained minister, lesbian, Goddess worshipper, Dianic witch and woman. Founder and executive director of the Seattle chapter of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics (COYOTE), La Croix began working as an elite call girl nearly 15 years ago. With bachelor's degrees in English and advertising and a master's degree in marketing communications, she left an established corporate career in journalism and advertising for a "far more honorable, honest and therapeutic calling" after settling a sexual harassment suit with a Fortune 100 company.
She is dedicated to raising public awareness that consensual adult sex is an essential, spiritual and nourishing part of life and that commercial sex (sacred or otherwise) is of benefit to humanity. Besides her sex work endeavors as call girl, dominatrix and former madam, La Croix also owns a computer services company and is an award-winning journalist. She has been an "out" lesbian for nearly 15 years and a witch for 26.

Currently completing her first book, On Our Back, Off Our Knees: A Declaration of Independence by a Modern Sacred Whore, an historical, social, spiritual and feminist commentary regarding sex work, La Croix is a member of the San Francisco and Los Angeles chapters of COYOTE as well and is an affiliate member of the North American Task Force on Prostitution (NTFP), the International Committee for Prostitutes Rights (ICPR) and the Network of Sex Work Projects. She makes frequent radio, television and speaking appearances, including on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in support of decriminalization of prostitution and is extremely well-known on the Internet. She was a featured speaker at the International Conference on Prostitution during March 1997 in Los Angeles and leads seminars and classes pertaining to sacred sexuality and feminine power.

I communicated at length with her about her work as a sexual healer.

Sylvana SilverWitch: Who and what is Catherine La Croix?

Catherine La Croix: What kind of question is that? Look at the bio! (Laughs)

Frankly, I never know from one day to the next since I'm constantly evolving, learning and expanding my boundaries as "Terminal Bad Girl." However, I must say my transformation from Good Girl to Bad Girl came easily. As they say, it courses in my veins. My mother's blood lines were Celtic and Pict, the Old People of Ireland and Scotland, and despite a slight aberration or two into Christianity, there was an extensive history of witchcraft, midwifery, healing and priestesshood among my mother's forbears. So I suppose I could lay it at her doorstep. She wouldn't like that very much, but maybe someday we can all be Good Girls no matter whom or why we fuck.

Succinctly, I belong to the Goddess. I am her priestess, called and chosen across time and space. I am neither chattel property, exploited victim, lifeless statistic nor objectified woman. For these and other reasons, of all and in all, I am consecrated to the Lady. And it is to Her alone that I answer for my actions.

SS: How did you come to be a whore, and how does that connect with your being a witch?

CLC: I am a very old soul. Consecrated to Inanna at the Sumerian city-state of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, I first took my vows to the Goddess nearly 6000 years ago and, over various lifetimes and incarnations, have served Her as priestess, sorceress, witch, healer and whore.

I became the face of Ishtar in Babylon and ruled as Isis in Egypt. I danced for Diana in Corinth and exulted in Cerridwen's Celtic Beltaine fires. I have practiced the healing arts of the wise and taught my daughters, real and fostered, the wisdom and power of the Goddess. Continuing the tradition in this lifetime was, I suspect, inevitable. Practically speaking, I'm not sure I know how someone "becomes" a sacred whore. Frankly, I'm still a bit surprised myself sometimes. I mean, it's not like I had some sort of epiphany where Ishtar, Aphrodite or another accomplished Whore Goddess suddenly inflamed my burning bush. Nor can I pinpoint a precise self-actualizing moment where I suddenly said to myself, "Today, you're a sacred whore." It was far more sublime.

However, my transformation from Good Girl to Bad Girl began when I first embraced the Goddess and dedicated myself to Her service at 16. Even if I had known then I would someday serve Her in my current capacity, it would hardly have lessened my ardor for Her.

I realized I had the compassion, communication and other skills that would make me an excellent whore, and I use the term in its most positive sense. Let's face it, we all whore - just some of us sell different parts of ourselves and provide a more socially beneficial service. More often than not, I'm being paid for my nurturing, intellect, articulation and companionship. Sex, in many ways, is secondary. This is true for much of sex work. I suppose it was professionally prompted by ending my corporate career after settling a sexual harassment lawsuit with a Fortune 100 company.

I knew then I would never willingly work for anyone else again. I had never really contemplated prostitution, sacred or otherwise, although I was well educated in its historical precedents and effect upon the world, particularly its male inhabitants. It is a heavy responsibility, and I'm sometimes asked if I would still work if I wasn't a sacred whore. I must admit that the power, healing and divine descendance aspects of sacred sexuality make me wonder myself, but I certainly don't frown on those who work without it. If I did, the income, independence and control would certainly be strongly persuasive factors.

SS: What is COYOTE and how long have you been in it?

CLC: COYOTE is a formal organization of sex workers and sex workers' rights advocates dedicated to the decriminalization and deregulation of prostitution and other sex work and an end to all police violence, harassment or criminal behavior in the enforcement of existing prostitution laws.

COYOTE supports all sex workers regardless of race, gender, sexual preference or venue and welcomes not only actual whores but also madams and escort agencies, strippers and erotic dancers, pro dominants and submissives, peep show performers, phone sex operators, nude or lingerie models, porn stars, massage parlor workers and others currently or formerly employed in the adult sex industry. We're obviously sex-positive, queer-friendly and progressively, adamantly feminist.

While we strongly support any sexual act by consenting adults, we just as strongly oppose the coercion or exploitation of any person, particularly minors.

Membership in COYOTE/Seattle is open to all sex workers of all genders and sexual persuasions, whether lesbian, gay, heterosexual, transvestite, transsexual, bisexual or otherwise. We do not subscribe to the ridiculous notion that no one willingly chooses the sex industry. While we support anyone's decision to leave the Life, we are strongly opposed to the suggestion that the only good whore is an ex-whore. I started the Seattle chapter two years ago after being illegally searched, arrested and jailed while walking from a furniture store to my car in the Aurora Avenue SOAP zone. (Editor's note: SOAP or Stay Out of the Area Prostitute zones essentially allow any unescorted woman to be detained and arrested for prostitution.)

SS: Do you feel as though you are in service to the Goddess as a witch and whore?

CLC: Absolutely. But I would be the last person to suggest that even a large minority of women in the Life have the same spiritual motivations, although there is a growing number. Nevertheless, I believe that every whore, even those operating without any sacred consciousness, does indeed provide a valuable contribution to society.

We are the shock absorbers of this world, especially the sacred whores. We soothe the hurt, nurture the heart, dissipate the anger and relieve the stress of a rather profane world. It is an intimate, healing moment shared with the Goddess.

SS: Have you always considered prostitution a sacred healing profession?

CLC: From the very beginning.

By casting the circle and invoking the Goddess, I create a temple between the worlds and invite my clients to experience and partake of the feminine mysteries within. It is a restorative process for them, for me and the world in which we live. It is also the continuing exploration of a path to which I was at first drawn and then enthusiastically embraced. But it should be remembered that the sacred whore resides in all women.

Contrary to some ignorant opinions both within and without the pagan community, those so empowered and publicly honoring the Goddess are not inherently promiscuous. The priestess whore allows the full expression of the Goddess bodily and, in so doing, opens both her heart and the client's to the Goddess.

SS: Does sexual healing always involve charging money for sex?

CLC: No, not always. I have often provided sexual healing to both clients and friends without charge and always will. The ancient sacred prostitute, in contrast to her modern counterpart, did not have to concern herself with money or possessions because she had all these and more by virtue of who, what and where she was. The priestess whore wanted for nothing by virtue of a Goddess-centered economy and faithful temple correspondents.

Today, societal constraints and patriarchal criminalization of our temples demand a more direct compensation method, since we're forced to fend for ourselves and pay our own individual expenses. Obviously, we've been around far longer than the Baptists and Pentecostals, but I don't see anyone arresting or censuring Christian evangelists for receiving offerings, although perhaps more than a few should be - á la Jim Bakker.

Yet conservative Christian clergy continue to claim a moral or, at best, spiritual distinction between themselves and pagan female clergy. Contrary to ancient precedents, the contemporary sacred whore now brings both the Goddess and the temple to the client and rightfully receives offerings for her ministry. It is an ageless tradition not easily broken by repressive prohibition or even outright ignorance. Periodically, some clueless moron, including a few claiming to be pagan, stridently tell me that as a sacred whore I shouldn't accept any offerings. Then I suggest they make my mortgage and car lease payments. No takers thus far.

SS: Does the sex always ring true as a healing, or does it sometimes fall flat?

CLC: I wish I could tell you that my first trick in the summer of 1982 was a stellar emotional and spiritual experience. It was not. Neither was my second or third. Or even my fourth. It wasn't that they were abusive, profane or negative in any sense, just not what I wanted them to be for either myself or them. Sexuality was a sacred, magickal and healing experience for me, but in my initial inexperience and lingering corporate drive, I was just a little dismayed that my times with clients weren't a more obviously therapeutic experience for them. I now know that they were indeed spiritually touched by the encounter, but what I was really hungering for were the mysterious trappings of my historical precedents and, let's be honest, the sensual melodrama encompassed in mesmerizing candle, intoxicating incense and gossamer canopies.

However, I shortly resigned myself to the fact that these accouterments - and the accompanying tableau - were not going to found in the typical hotel unless I brought them. While I always bring my heart with me, I have since come to recognize that the efficacy of the healing is incumbent upon both the priestess and the client. The priestess cannot carry it alone.

SS: How does being a lesbian figure into the sexual healing of men?

CLC: I'm not sure it does. Like most professionals, sacred or secular, I don't confuse love and work. My lovely wife, Christine, also a witch, knew I was a sex worker from the beginning and also knew she would never have to feel threatened by my calling or its encounters with men. In fact, she became a sex worker after we met and works doubles sessions with me besides handling the administrative responsibilities. Keep in mind that there are female clients as well who want to explore either bisexual or lesbian fantasies.

During seminars or speaking engagements, I'm also ministering to women attempting to find the power of the sacred whore within, that freedom to sexually express themselves without either internal or external stigma. Regardless of gender, I still become the face of the Goddess for them.

SS: How does the lesbian community react to your profession?

CLC: Like the pagan community, it varies. Being a lipstick lesbian, I was told right after I arrived in Seattle that I couldn't be a dyke since I wore makeup and heels. Sorry, but I didn't own any fucking flannel.

The most insulting, stereotypical reactions have come from granola dyke anti-sex feminists. Yes, I have had pleasurable non-commercial het sex. No, it wasn't earth-shaking, but it was pleasurable and I'm certainly not the first lesbian to do so. The problem is most dykes won't admit it even if typical lesbian sex is incredibly vanilla and even if they have occasionally fantasized about some hunk of burnin' love at one time or another. Hey, it's all right to admit it. It's not like the dyke police are going to jerk your lesbian license. But even if I have had pleasurable het sex, it was not preferable.

I may have fucked upwards of 5000 or 6000 male clients, but the fact remains, when everything is said and done, that I prefer and love women without reservation or question. I'm still planning on establishing a priestess community in the future.

SS: What elements need to be present to have sex as a healing act?

CLC: Open hearts, honesty, integrity, knowledge and spiritual awareness. The ritual can take any form the priestess chooses, but it's her inner heart - and the openness of the client - that matters. I might not be installed in a public temple, but I nevertheless bring the Goddess and Her healing with me to the bedroom and my clients. Just as Her priestesses of old, I demand respect and reverence for me personally and the spiritual aspects of my work. In exchange for that respect and certain offerings to the Goddess and Her priestess, I bring them grace, healing, generosity, compassion, communication and intimacy. If all they are interested in is a wet hole in the mattress, they can look elsewhere. I know that no matter when I retire from actively working that I will always be a priestess whore. That consecration and spirit will never change.

SS: Are you happy in your profession?

CLC: Yes, otherwise I wouldn't still be doing it 15 years later.

The only negative aspect personally has been criminalization, that rather ridiculous governmental exercise in futility that pretends to disapprove of prostitution while living off its proceeds. If you don't think so, then you obviously have no idea how many police, district attorneys, judges and jailers we keep employed. Prostitution is kept criminalized for the same reason drugs are. Far too many people in government and other types of organized crime make far too much money from both to decriminalize either.

For those of us who work from a spiritual perspective, it is also the illegal suppression of our First Amendment right to religious expression. True, not all contemporary whores are as happy with their profession or apply such a spiritual context to their profession. But for those of us who are Wiccan or other adherents of the Old Religion, it is a most sacred religious expression in the truest sense and one happily lived.

I must admit that not all of us in the sex industry bring that portion of enthusiastic self traditionally found among the sacred whores. It's also true enough that not all contemporary whores are graceful, generous, compassionate, considerate, communicative, intelligent or even honest. I hear horror stories all the time how the "last girl just lay there" or "she stole money out of my wallet" or "she was so jaded and cynical." Like most professions and avocations, we have our less-than-stellar examples and solely mercenary ones, too. But that hardly means we all are. You just don't see us in the movies or television very often. And when you do, unfortunately, Hollywood consistently demonstrates it knows as little about whores as it does about witches.

SS: One of the things people use when they argue against prostitution is that women are forced into it or exploited; can you speak to that?

CLC: Unlike in the fast food industry, exploitation or coercion in the sex industry is by and large the exception to the rule. Typically, it is most frequently trumpeted by those who don't work in the industry.

Most sex workers, with the exception of street workers practicing survival sex and supporting a drug habit, are predominately intelligent, educated and middle-class women. Far from exploited victims, they are independent entrepreneurs. My friends in the Life, for the most part, share these characteristics and, like me, were not coerced into sex work but made a voluntary, premeditated decision.

I would strongly encourage any woman who considers entering the Life to do so with a sense of power, creativity and recognition of the Goddess within. Realizing who she is and Who she represents, along with the therapeutic responsibilities it demands, will make her a far better whore spiritually, if she so chooses.

SS: How do you see yourself in relationship to the Craft or Goddess communities?

CLC: Much like any other witch. I have previously been part of various covens, but I currently practice as a solitary. I communicate with several priestess sisters here in Seattle but also in San Francisco and elsewhere. I'm not sure exactly when the priestess whore community I mentioned will transpire, but I foresee it in the not too distant future.

SS: Have you had any problems with discrimination from the Craft or Goddess communities?

CLC: Some but not extensively. Most have been quite positive. I remember the first time I walked into Pendragons a couple of years ago. Don Joseph clasped his hands and bowed in both respect and honor. I would say his response has been more typical.

Selena Fox, on the other hand, was far less hospitable. Keep in mind that sacred whoredom did not originate with Wicca, Dianic or otherwise, but from the ancient shamanism from which Wicca evolved. Indeed, Wicca has no history of sacred whoredom with the possible exception of the Celtic Spring Maiden, Beltaine festivals or the Great Marriage for the land between king and priestess. However, while the principle remains constant and is certainly similar in practice, there are Wiccans who have made a point of telling me that they do not consider such rites ones of whoredom.

The priestess whore must really look back to the cradle of civilization and dawn of Neolithic prehistory to find our rightful origins. We are quite well documented in the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Palestinian cultures of nearly 7000 years ago and, lest current Wiccans forget, it is from these civilizations that much of contemporary Wicca, witchcraft and neo-paganism springs.

It is true that not all priestesses in all Goddess traditions spanning the millennia were the equivalent of Ishtar's entu, naditu, qadishtu and isharitu, the ancient Akkadian honorifics accorded the various ranks of priestess whores. But for those who made love to the many in the guise of the Goddess, they were honored above all women, even queens. Flawless in the loving, and, regardless of station, they were entirely hallowed to Her. In fact, qadishtu is literally translated "sanctified or undefiled woman." My decision to serve Her was deliberate and considered at length. Being a spiritual, social and sexual outlaw denies the patriarchy that which it craves most: possession and control of female sexuality, reproduction and independence. Sexual and emotional healing isn't the only obligation of the priestess whore. Today, she has no alternative in our current society but to stand, rebel and openly defy the patriarchy. Such is her position, and such is her devotion to the Goddess.

SS: What would you say are the negative aspects of working as a sexual healer?

CLC: Other than a repressive patriarchy? It's peculiar to each priestess, but for me it's the constant stress of possibly being jailed for being practicing clergy and the sheer exhaustion the ministry produces.

Even if a session has not been particularly demanding physically, and even if I am completely grounded and spiritually centered, I find myself totally drained afterwards. Her incarnate Presence is something akin, if you'll excuse the hyperbole, to diverting the Nile through a garden hose. A successful and healthy whore, particularly sacred, demands far more than just tits and ass and the assumed willingness to market them. Perhaps that's because the majority of sex, commercial or otherwise, takes place between the ears and not the thighs. In my own experience, intellect, articulation, independence, intuition, compassion and soul-sharing are far more crucial than simply alluring physical attributes.

I have never felt any regret or remorse, but, sacred or secular, it is not a choice for the emotionally insecure or intellectually challenged. I don't say that lightly because even for true professionals, and especially for those sacredly devoted, it is an extremely demanding avocation. Unlike any other profession in the world, perhaps, it requires the giving of heart and soul and mind and body and the ability to reclaim those at the end of each client session.

During each session, I invoke the Lady Morgain for protection and the expression of Herself to the client through me. She allows me to communicate that which is most needed today in our warped society: tenderness, compassion, affection, sexual and verbal expression and intimacy. But not without cost to me.

SS: What would you say are the positive aspects?

CLC: For the capable woman, power, assurance, independence, control, financial security, sexual liberation and spiritual satisfaction.

SS: Can modern women utilize this healing energy to reclaim their sexuality and power?

CLC: Absolutely! Power, sexuality and magick are inherent to every woman if she but knows it and knows how to use it. A woman who possesses it can neither be intimidated nor subjugated. It is that combination of power, self-assurance and mystery that truly enthralls men and women. It is not the power of possession, profession or politics, which can be just as easily lost as attained. It is the mystery that makes a woman as pleasurable and elusive as a handful of fragrance. It is a confidence bereft of arrogance and a power instilled with mercy, a combination of strength and vulnerability.

This seeming contradiction is the element of feminine mystique that perhaps most often leaves men befuddled. In the typical male context, you can't be both powerful and vulnerable. Consequently, women either entice or intimidate them. An accomplished sacred whore trades on this in a positive way, learning to balance the enticement and intimidation to make the moment with the Goddess all the more enjoyable. So can any other woman. A man's preference for a woman's confidence and power is simply the reiteration and perceived reflection of his own. More concisely, a man is known by the company and power he keeps, if not possesses. Namely, hers.

SS: How about the male's role in all of this?

CLC: What about it? Do you mean as a client or as a worker? Most male workers are bi or gay and primarily service a bi or gay male clientele. I get calls at COYOTE all the time from straight guys who want to be male escorts. I tell them not to quit their day jobs. Let's face it, if a woman wants to get laid she can without paying for it. As a client, the man is there to worship the Goddess and Her priestess and receive Her healing. If he can approach the scenario with an open heart, not succumbing to machismo, the session will be indeed all he wants and more.

SS: How can today's man learn to embrace sexual healing, both for himself and the women in his life?

CLC: This is part and parcel of what I do: teaching men to respect the divine and incarnate female. I sometimes find, ironically in our society, that I'm the only woman they truly respect. That's extremely sad. Our patriarchal society has so diluted femininity that they only see secretaries, dependent wives and other subordinates.

With me, or any woman equally aware, they can truly experience that most potent of aphrodisiacs: true feminine power. Frankly, if more men spent a few sessions with an accomplished sacred whore, their wives would be far happier. In fact, if the wives spent a few sessions with an accomplished sacred whore, they would both be far happier and sexually healthier.

SS: Are there any other ways to use this healing sexual energy, other than becoming a sacred prostitute?

CLC: Certainly, with your spouse or partners, as I mentioned earlier, or for your own sexual empowerment.

SS: I also asked this question of Carol Leigh last year: What exactly do you think is the problem for most people with prostitution? Is it that people are having sex? Or that money is being made? What part of those things is bad? We don't think its bad to spend money for anything else, or to have sex in other instances; why does it suddenly become bad when put together?

CLC: I wish I knew the real answer to this one, but our access to personal freedom of choice is curtailed in the name of a selective morality at best, one that distinguishes between business transactions solely on the basis of sexual involvement. We can debate the "immorality" of prostitution until we're blue in the face, but the fact remains that this religious censure has no legal standing whatsoever. Would there be prostitution laws if it wasn't for enforced Christian morality? We live in a society that prides itself on the constitutional separation of church and state yet outrageously allows the predominate religious system to jeopardize my freedom and curtail my profession in the name of morality.

All employment or professional service is nothing more than the exchange of energy for material gain. You may exchange your 40 hours or more a week to receive a salary that is simply a substitute for material property potential. Sex work exchanges, between consenting adults, are not essentially different from any other economic activities, particularly those of a similar recuperative nature such as psychological counseling, physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, licensed massage and even a physician or attorney. In each and every case, a service or energy in the form of knowledge, intellect, judgment or physical touch is traded for cash. The fact that my particular service involves sexuality does not alter the essential nature of the exchange.

Logically, the question is begged whether it is lawful for the state to use obviously discriminatory physical force against those making this wholly voluntary exchange. What's the difference between a man hiring a whore and hiring a physical therapist? Or even a psychotherapist? In either case, the parties are engaged in a voluntary transaction without external coercion. It is not an unusual transactional paradigm, with the exception of sex, since each party openly acknowledges their own self-interest just as with your attorney or accountant. Perhaps what abolitionists resent most is our moral and mercenary lack of regret.

SS: Do you think prostitution as sexual healing should be legalized? How would that look? What might it accomplish?

CLC: I think all sex between consenting adults should be decriminalized, sacred or not, in recognition of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. It does not distinguish between verbal, sexual or any other form of expression. America repealed the unenforceable Prohibition idiocy but continues the same neurotic principle regarding prostitution: Legislate an individual version of morality, and jail all of those who happen to disagree. Then as now, it only serves to subsidize organized crime in the process of restricting freedom of expression.

However, we need to distinguish in the reader's mind the difference between legalization and decriminalization from both a sex worker and nonworker perspective. Legalization would be the bureaucratic control of sex work by the government. Remember, these are the guys who can't find their ass with both hands.

Decriminalization means we are treated as any other profession without undue governmental intrusion. It's not enough that we already have police officers abusing, beating, blackmailing, raping, robbing and killing us. Under legalization, we would then have licensing bureaucrats also abusing, blackmailing, raping and robbing us with paperwork and restrictive regulation. And they would still be backed by the cops. No, thank you. I have no more confidence in a bureaucrat's alleged altruism than I do a cop's. Both have proven extremely unreliable over the past 100 years of protecting us from ourselves, as they put it.

The end result of decriminalization would be less abuse, violence and coercion of sex workers, happier clients and happier taxpayers who would save the millions of dollars spent annually to arrest us.

SS: Could you speak to the prejudice of people thinking that prostitutes spread disease?

CLC: The U.S. Department of Health consistently reports that only 3 to 5 percent of the sexually transmitted disease in this country is related to both criminalized and legalized prostitution, compared with 30 to 35 percent among teenagers. Although a small percentage of prostitutes are HIV-positive, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control stated there were no proven cases of HIV transmission from prostitutes to clients as of July 1995. There is no statistical indication, again according to the CDC, that prostitutes in the United States are even a measurable vector of HIV infection. Those sex workers proven seropositive have all but exclusively been street whores and intravenous drug users.

The vast majority of nonaddicted and non-street sex workers consistently use condoms and practice safe sex because they are keenly aware of the increased risks of multiple partners. The most prevalent STD among sex workers, like the rest of the adult female population in the U.S., is chlamydia. The rate of HIV and hepatitis C infection among sex workers is directly proportionate to IV drug use. Sex workers are far more likely to get a disease from a client than vice versa.

SS: How has it figured in your own personal sexual healing that you are a lesbian in a world that disdains anything out of the "norm" and also a sex worker having sex with men when you are not sexually attracted to them? Do you feel you've come to terms with these aspects of yourself?

CLC: It has taught me never to be driven by conventionality or fear. For instance, I'm often asked why a whore, witch and lesbian, facing both legal and social censure, would be so open and public as an activist, speaker, educatrix and writer. After all, I could not have chosen three more outcast and, it seems, affiliated designations if I had tried. More than likely, it's because I believe by eliminating the fear and ignorance that prompts the question, we can begin eliminating the social stigma and basis for persecution of all three designations.

I also recognize that stigmatization is based a great deal on one's own perspective of the stigmatic behavior, choice or affiliation. I'm out as a lesbian, witch and whore because by being public I started diluting and eliminating the power that stigma can bring not just to me but to others as well. If I am unashamed of any of those three appellations, what can some ignorant asshole possibly do to instill it?

This also applies to the lesbians-who-fuck-men stigma. I never had a problem with it, but more than a few lesbians did. It's ministry, pure and simple. No one asks that question about gay male pastors ministering to women or lesbian ministers counseling gay men. My ministry is no different. It's just more inclusive of the entire being: spirit, soul and body. I've ministered to gay, lesbian and bisexual men and women and also transsexuals without question.

Some less-informed researchers using very small samples have suggested that prostitutes, in general, suffer from "negative identities" or lack of self-esteem. However, an excellent 1986 study by Diane Prince found call girls and brothel workers had higher self-esteem than before they became prostitutes. While I may have been accused of a few vices in my time, apart from the seemingly obvious ones, a lack of self-confidence or poor self-image was not one of them. I have always been happy as a sex worker and have encountered no contradiction in being both whore and lesbian. As I said, I don't confuse love and business.

SS: Any last wisdom you would like to impart?

CLC: I make no apology for who or what I am or for the ministry for which I was chosen. Clearly, there is no shame to the pagan priestess who does not so publicly serve, although she should indeed know the sacred whore within and her mystic relationship to the Great Mother.

Not every pagan priestess serves as sacred whore, but every sacred whore serves as priestess. It falls to those whom She calls. Be quick to answer if She does.

SS: Do you have any events or classes coming up? How might our readers contact you or COYOTE?

CLC: Right now, with so much energy going into the book and online business, I hold seminars or make speaking engagements only by request.

For more information or media inquiries, they can contact me at catherine.la.croix@comcast.net