=Worthless Love is True Love: a mini-essay=

I could never attach the term "love" to anything that had a practical value and if I sensed that I was of "use" to anyone I was immediately suspect of their intentions. I felt driven to frustrate whatever expectations they might have had about my function in the relationship so as to put their "love" to the test. Would they love "me" and not the purpose I was supposed serve? Invariably, these relationships ended badly. The one and only time I ever truly felt loved was with a man for whom I could have no economic or social use whatsoever. From a capitalist point of view, I was worthless. All I could offer him was pleasure—the pleasure of my body and my company, neither of which, on the open market, was a particularly valuable commodity at the time he chose me. But that to me is what "love" is and will always be—the surrender to an irrational impulse for a person without thought of practical advantage; indeed, often in the face of the exact opposite. Ten years later I am still with this same man and it's no exaggeration to say that I am just as worthless to him and at the same time I feel every bit as cherished.