Squandering Everything in the Name of Freedom

By Alison Pilling

I hate being told what to do.

I want to choose. I want to choose where I live, how I work, how I move around, who I mix with, what I do with my time, love, attention and body. Choice is a great privilege, I’m aware of that. The things I do for money these days are mostly from choice, in that I have to earn money to pay for life. I used to work for a big corporation and I understood that while it was my job to make my sales target, I got to choose on some level, the best way to do that. Working harder didn’t help but there were a certain number of hours a week that were expected of me and I’d willingly signed up for. A deal is a deal.

Since being self-employed, it’s hit and miss. Choice has had a price. After the first lockdown which felt like prison, I vowed “no more”. While living in the countryside it was fun to break curfews, enjoy longer-than-an-hour walks in the sunshine in the Calder Valley, and meet fellow walkers, keeping a distance or not. Belief around the efficacy of the suggested hand washing, masks or vaccines brought out my inner rebel, and I’ve washed my hands less since. I refused to buy hand sanitiser, decided against going for a drink where tests were needed or to cold restaurants, refusing to download a tracker app, read death statistics or heed the texts for vaccines. My personal view was that amidst a serious illness, there was a lot of prepaid control, consumerism and corruption. I’m probably not alone but don’t read on if you believe it was all a great idea. 

One of the things I disliked intensely was the instruction to “pivot” my business, to shift online what was previously in person. I saw others successfully do it and I felt paralysed, I probably could have worked out how to do it but I vehemently didn’t want to. I’m in the business of connection and touch. Being a sex coach or offering erotic massage involves bodies in rooms. If a freeze response belies my anger, my defiance ruined me financially. 

So I set off around the world and lived in counties that didn’t require a vaccine, at least not at the beginning. A second lockdown in a miserable cold house in Italy. I was glad other people pivoted before I did or I wouldn’t have enjoyed workshops on verbal commands or Fuck Talk. Saved by online sex-positive parties meant I met a crush and danced naked in my Italian under-floor heated kitchen in a regular Friday morning zoom. I met contacts online who were even better in person, and others where the initial interest or flirtation dropped away once we connected IRL. No guarantees either way. 

Leaving Italy after 90 days post Brexit, walking through passport control into Albania was a complete joy, as the official smiled at me and said “Sunshine is good for Covid”. My kind of woman in uniform. My 5 day quarantine meant I spent 24hrs in Tirana then sat on a bus for a long journey to the coast. In Sarande no one asked, everyone was on the streets, I went to the hairdresser twice and bought new clothes in open shops. A cheap bright orange jumper, not a natural fibre in it, for warmth and colour. I loved the spirit of Albania, with their f* you to the WHO. After decades of internal tyranny, their defiance suited mine. 

I had to be abstemious. The rent from my house back in Yorkshire from two exes as lodgers and the last bit of savings from corporate work years ago. I lived cheaply on black coffee, spinach pie and sunshine for 90 days of rebel compatibility. On Saturday nights the restaurants were full of people living a spring life, families and couples wandering the Himara promenade, eating ice cream, and sharing dinner overlooking the green clear water. In a year it was the first time I’d seen life happening again. Even though I was the outsider looking on, seeing these bonds and ordinariness mattered.

Working remotely supporting Sex Bod online was another defiance. I love the transgression, the creativity and purpose, holding Sensual Salons online, bringing people together to flirt and connect and share erotic secrets. A mini pivot. Still, my savings and income dwindled and I didn’t notice. What mattered most in my days when I felt alone, was the fact I’d chosen this solitude and beauty. That I wasn’t in the UK watching the Boris fuckwittery, the daily statistics, the justification of corruption, the modern-day bread and circuses, grabbing attention and bodies. 

I’m not anti-vax, I’m pro-choice. When I needed a vaccine in Mexico to go to an artists residency in Colombia I did what was needed. I queued and got lucky, days before crossing invisibly through borders. I’m nothing if not flexible. I trust my health, I trust my germs and the right amount of dirt. I don’t want a hand-sanitised life. Later that year, I played the 3-minute game with a new friend in a cafe in Arrillas. I wanted him to touch me until he put hand sanitiser on. I accepted someone might feel the same about not wanting to be intimate with me because I’d had a vaccine, and some wouldn’t because I hadn’t had enough. All the differing opinions made conversations and beliefs more obvious. Consent in action. It was fine, I wasn’t interested in being right, but in a way that each friend could hold their own beliefs, without us judging the other for differing. Everything has consequences and I grew closer to some and further apart from others. Each of us willing to accept agreement of difference. At least in this. This isn't the hill I’m going to die on. 

Following my freedom took me on a soul quest. A place to see if I could be true to myself, to keep moving, to be a rolling stone. I got back to the UK depleted, devoid of optimism and hormones as menopause hit. The return to love, friendly intimacy and reclaiming my own home was never more welcome. To be with people who have loved me for a long time, to the view of the green rainy valley from my bedroom window, to a doctor and HRT,  and to pick up the smashed business plates from the floor and begin The Sex Lectures again. To sit still and focus on life admin with friends in twenty-five-minute co-working, co-regulating sessions, keeping each other sane and seen. To find some sense of restoration, optimism and what’s worth doing. 

As destiny would have it, the final stage of the quest, and the one with most obstacles, brought me to Corfu. With my heart in Corfu, although my feet may still love to rove, the inner wanderer feels settled for now. There’s nowhere to go now, and a new space to create.