seanessay.com
Respect was mutual and easy among two female sex workers and I after we three moved into a duplex together. Their boyfriends loved them. This would have been long after I had learned to make eye contact and do small talk. But years earlier, when I walked as a security guard along an avenue of male prostitutes, I had to know my own strength and not respect them too much. That was because their pimps employed fear and degradation. Allowing in respect requires self esteem.
A city slicker friend of my family was excruciatingly polite. Any politer, and I would have slipped defensively into a backwoods accent like somebody out of Mark Twain. Because I wasn’t ready yet for his respectful polished politeness.
Someone who peruses his Bible alone in the wilderness might become too religious, compared to church goers. If I have pondered respect, all by my lonesome, it’s because I grew up in an isolated bush family that, as my brother puts it, could have been a case study in a social work text.
Years after moving to the city, I knew about dinner etiquette from a library book. A girlfriend with a trust fund, out for dinner with me, explained her raised consciousness level: she would rearrange the food on her plate, during a meal, to be pleasant for other diners. “Oh,” I said. I might never reach her level.
Should I “to mine own self be true?” As in being respectful to a fault? Or might I make allowances for others having their own less polished ideas of respect?
I once phoned my brother, long distance, to say I was heading to university. Knowing my sort, he asked, “Teacher or social worker?” Now, my past behind me, I have my proud degree, something Human Resources uses as a generic screening device—to graduate, you have to be functional.
I once read that adults like me, when their childhood issues are resolved, are among the best human service workers. I do agree. People say, “You can’t love others until first you love yourself.” I don’t agree. It was by loving and respecting others that I learned how to better regard myself.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
Calgary
June
2025
