You start like a white blanket and you have to preserve that, and each year that you live chips away at your essential value.

Different types of sex work are differently supportive. If I were working in a strip club, I would be competing with my colleagues, and while there would be support, there would be financial motivation not to offer too much support.

The truth is, the vast majority of medical care for lower income people in America is shitty. If you go to a free clinic to receive any form of care, the majority of those will be overcrowded with nurses who are tired because they have to work with so many people. We are not a country that invests public money into taking care of poor people, so we usually rely on clinics with very overburdened and underpaid staff.

Maybe you shouldn't be working as a jailer in Guantánamo. Maybe that's why you feel spiritually unhealthy.

I feel like the traditional patron system meant that you would kiss the ass of one rich person and then hide all of the financial goings-on of your work, and you could pretend you were pure.

I came in as an established artist. People were hiring me for what I did and for who I was. I think that has given me a vast amount of leeway; I feel so lucky that I came in that way.

But the thing about proving things? Your jaggedness just goads you on – it makes you sharper and harder. It gives you swagger.