Why Sex Workers are SO Scary

Some people – women especially – just hate what you do for a living.  Their distaste for  your profession is completely out of sync with any personal impact it could possibly have on their lives. If you have ruled out jealousy, competition and/or fear of the unknown – what is left to explain the almost rabid and allergic reaction to the way you pay your rent or mortgage?

Recently it dawned on me that very much like the gay rights movement, our movement – the sex worker rights movement – suffers its worst insults from closeted whores and johns (If you find those words offensive I invite you ask yourself why. Personally I am all about reclaiming the words used to oppress us). Let’s face it the men who are most adamantly opposed to decriminalization often turn out to be regular clients of sex workers. The most publicized example of this is of course former New York governor Eliot Spitzer who had built his career with a promise of “ethics” and the prosecution of prostitution rings but was later found to be a regular client of prostitutes.

And what about the women?  I have often envisioned them as insecure wives – worried that I and my sex worker colleagues were out to fuck their men – for free if necessary – just to show them up as the incompetent and unalluring losers they worry they are. But I don’t think jealousy is the big motivator we have allowed ourselves to believe it is. Instead I wonder if our most vehement opposition comes from women who have more in common with us than they would like to admit.

When I recall the cruelest and most dismissive reactions to my choice to become a sex worker, it has often been from female “friends” who were former sex workers or extremely promiscuous or at least prone to dating for money. The truly asexual or bashful female friends have usually been more curious than offended by my choice in careers.

Recently I began attending a church well-known for its tolerance of all lifestyles and beliefs including atheism and paganism. I didn’t imagine that my former identity as a working girl would hold much interest for the congregation. After all, I have been semi-retired for over five years and live modestly as an author and couples consultant.  My motivation for attending church was twofold: I hoped to find a venue for my workshops on peace and I wanted to add a little ritual to my life. For instance when my dog got cancer I found the “Blessing of the Animals” to be of great comfort.

So imagine my surprise when the witch in charge of the pagan meetings (no, I am not trying to insult this woman, she really is a witch) launched an effort to expel me from the church. Initially, I thought she was simply offended by my approach to world peace: polyamory as modeled by the bonobos.  Yeah, this is another topic and not really relevant to this blog entry but suffice to say that I believe a lot of violence results from a sex negative culture and I have a lot of research and evidence to back up that claim. 

But even after I abandoned any aspirations I had to teach workshops at this church and simply attended the pagan meetings as a student in search of more knowledge of the various forms of paganism, the witch persisted in her campaign to drive me from the congregation. She called one day to suggest I attend pagan workshops at a local bookstore where their approach would be more “adult.” For the umpteenth time she told me how her workshops would be “family friendly.”  I told her this might come as a shock to her but I have a family and I am a mother to four step-children. The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. What was she thinking? Was she shocked to think former prostitutes might have families?  Or was she offended to think I had ever been allowed to parent children?  Who knows but she certainly choked on the news.

Since I have only been to about five church services and my interactions with this woman have been brief and polite, I am quite certain that her reaction has very little to do with me personally. But I do represent something that appears to terrify her. For one of the pagan rituals she held at the church, she wore a costume which reminded me of the ancient sacred prostitutes. The skirt was constructed of sheer chiffon adorned with beads and coins. I couldn’t help but wonder if she understood what her costume signified in days of old. How could she sport coins on her person without comprehending the significance of money sewn into a garment? True, some will argue that this was “dowry” money but the fact remains that the coins were sewn into the garment as a reminder that the dancer expected to get paid for her performance while she was performing – very much like strippers are paid today.

We could now have the argument of whether belly dancers are sex workers or we could ask ourselves why it is so important to draw this arbitrary and nonsensical line in the sand between the “good girls” and the “bad girls.” And that really is the point to this blog entry. Women are insanely invested in distinguishing themselves from the “bad girl” and the more closely they skirt the “bad girl” lifestyle, the more obsessive this drive to say “I am NOT a whore” becomes.

A similar phenomena is well documented in the gay rights movement. It is now common knowledge that some of the worst hate crimes against gays are often perpetrated by closeted homosexuals who are full of self-hatred and denial. Similarly I believe our sex worker rights movement would do well to understand the self-hatred and denial which fuels hate crimes against sex workers. I think we will find that our most vocal opponents are quite literally in bed with us as clients or metaphorically as self-hating closeted sex workers.

What might we do to win these closeted clients and sex workers over to our struggle for civil rights and the dignity of choice?  I’m not entirely sure. If I find a way to assuage the terror my existence has created for the witch at church I will let you know. I DO know this though. Every effort to decriminalize or legalize prostitution has been blocked by the “good women” of the community in question. Historically both prohibition of alcohol and prostitution have been feminist endeavors as championed by many of the suffragists of the early 1900’s. So although present day feminists might think their stance against prostitution reflective of political evolution, it is instead a fairly old-fashioned and conservative take on the oldest profession.

Many political movements will dissociate from other more controversial causes for fear that their primary objective will be lost. Early feminists were afraid of accepting lesbians and the gay rights movement didn’t want to champion transgender rights. This fear of being associated with others perceived as “less deserving” of civil rights is a noxious but all too human failing. I wonder if it has its roots in basic human survival and perhaps that is the impediment we battle when we seek to assert our civil rights as sex workers. Or perhaps the broader issue here is that neither men nor women possess a sexual bill of rights and rather than fight to assert their rights alongside sex workers (who are working for the rights of all adults to have sex as they see fit) they recoil with the fear of losing what few freedoms they do have.

What do you think? What is is that fuels the disrespect and even hatred we often encounter from second wave feminists, from wives and girlfriends, from concerned parents, from law enforcement, from landlords, from child protection services, from neighbors, from family, from former friends and even from our own clients?

The Shit Stops Here

 

Veronica Monet's 1998 Guest Appearance on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect

 

If you know anything about the all too human failing called “projection” than you know humans have a history of blaming their foibles and fears on individuals and groups of people known as scapegoats.  Rather than engage in the all too rare virtue of introspection, the disappointingly lazy human will choose to project their lust, fear, weaknesses, taboo fantasies and secret cravings on anyone they can designate as “other.”  The scapegoat often becomes someone of a different race or gender or perhaps sexual orientation.

For instance, AIDS was initially blamed upon homosexual persons.  Disease is usually blamed upon immigrants.  Poverty is blamed upon minorities.  Sexually transmitted infections are generally blamed upon sex workers although prostitution can only account for 7% of STD transmission.  Yet the myths and the prejudice persist.

This special form of societally sanctioned hatred has taken many forms over the years.  Just a few hundred years ago, hatred and suspicion of women who owned property and lived alone translated into the infamous “witch” burnings.  It was quite common for suspected witches to be stripped naked and tortured sexually until they “confessed” to the sexual fantasies which took up residence in the twisted minds of their persecutors.  Once the “witch” confessed she was often killed and her property absorbed by the “good” people and their “holy” institutions.

Today’s prostitute is a convenient scapegoat for society’s discomfort with its own sexual desires and while the prostitute approaches sex as a job, her detractors often see her as sexually wanton and lustful which is an obvious projection of the motives of one who would choose to purchase the services of a prostitute.  Second wave feminists take the opposite approach and cast any female who makes the choice to put a price on her sexual behavior, a victim in need of being “rescued.”  The second wave feminist cannot imagine choosing to engage in sex for pay unless something horrific had forced her to do so and since this is true for her, she assumes it is true for all women.

Either way, the mind and motives of the individual sex worker are never accounted for and the net effect is one of obliterating the sex worker as a viable human worthy of a modicum of respect.  Whether one of my clients fantasizes me into some kind of nympho or a feminist accuses me of “being in denial” I am effectively reduced to the cartoon in its originator’s head.  What I really think and feel is of no concern.  How my life can serve someone else’s deep psychological processes becomes paramount because in the final analysis, prostitutes are NOT people.  We ARE of course.  But we are NOT percieved as people by anyone but ourselves.

Of course the sex worker rights movement is entirely about procuring rights and human dignity for sex workers and it is why I devoted so many years putting my life and my personhood on the line publicly.  I paid a price for all those television appearances.  I was jailed, audited, fined, evicted and nearly lost visitation of my stepchildren. But those are just the headlines. The part that hurt the most and continues to take a toll today even though I have been “retired” from escorting for five years now, is the perception of being either evil or pitied.  If I am seen as strong then I am also “bad.”  And if I am seen as sweet or endearing than I am to be pitied and pathologized.

Today someone saw the spiritual side of me and came to the conclusion that I should abandon all this talk about sex because apparently in their world sex and spirituality are incompatible.  In addition, they blithely announced that I “am finding my way” as if I had been lost and was finally getting my life together.  That I refuse to “repent” or disavow my past as a prostitute or porn actress creates so much cognitive dissonance in the vast majority of people that they simply rewrite my script to suit themselves.

In their world I must choose one or the the other.  I cannot be both spiritually enlightened and pro sex work.  I can’t move on to a second career unless I am prepared to lable my years as a sex worker as somehow “unfortunate” but perhaps “necessary” to my personal journey.  When I speak about how much satisfaction and yes even fun I had as an escort, I get looks of disapproval and concern.  If I speak about those aspects of sex work that I liked less, the understanding nods of approval commence and once again my truth becomes irrelevant in the telling of my life.

My story isn’t unique.  Every prostitute finds himself or herself relegated to a stereotype at some point in their life and career.  If they hide their profession from family and friends, they still have to navigate the stupid assumptions  made by some of their clients – or at least would be clients.  Someone at some point will inevitably reach into the deep recesses of their own tortured psyche, grab a handful of smelly shit they should have dealt with in a therapist’s office and hurl it toward a prostitute with the moral conviction and piety reserved for  “good” people.

I will be presenting Understanding the Mind of a Woman at Baker Street Downtown in Napa, California on April 30th. Show starts at 6PM and comes with free cigars! Call me at 888.903.0050 for details.

Prostitution versus Porn

Just Another Day at Work

A few weeks ago I wrote the title of this blog entry on a blackboard in a classroom.  I was lecturing at Sonoma State University and trying to find a way to reach the students on the topic of sex worker rights. In the last few years I have noticed a huge shift in attitudes among the college aged regarding pornography. 

Sometimes when I walk into a classroom early I will find the professor from the previous class handing out pornographic DVD’s like candy for kids.  No one blushes about sex and video anymore.  And surveys show a marked increase in the percentage of females who view porn.  The women are still a little behind the men in this avocation but they won’t be for long.  Pornography is fast becoming a standard form of entertainment for both genders.

And yet even with this new-found acceptance of sex for pay – and let’s face it that is exactly what the porn industry is – students still toe the party line on the topic of prostitution.  In fact the anti-prostitution rhetoric is gaining momentum with buzzwords like trafficking which seem to arouse consternation in the most liberal thinkers.  And that is the problem with the word “trafficking” – it bypasses thinking and aims itself at primal fears about “those other people” from “other countries” who kidnap our innocent youth and turn them into “sex slaves.”

Mind you I am not suggesting that these things don’t happen but so far very little proof has been produced to support the assertions that sex trafficking is the huge problem it is being touted to be.  Instead most anti-trafficking efforts purporting to “rescue” sex workers from a fate worse than death are in fact simply harrassing immigrants.

For every heart breaking story about a true trafficking victim, there are hundreds of more mundane stories about coming to America or Europe to make big money but getting deported instead. 

The trafficking debate reminds me of domestic violence.  Having volunteered for a domestic violence shelter when I was in college, I am intimately acquainted with the very real problem of family violence.  And yet as a society we don’t indict the idea of family because some people suffer violence in the home.  Instead we look for ways to make families safer for all of us. 

I long for the day when voters, lawmakers and social workers will see prostitution as a viable profession worthy of such an approach.  It would be so much more productive to offer sex workers opportunities for empowerment, safety and worker rights.  But right now the trafficking mentality would rather patronize immigrants by “rescuing” them – even if it means forcing them out of a trade they have freely chosen.

But back to that Sonoma State University classroom: I asked the students to list all the “bad” things they associate with porn and with prostitution.  Both lists were fairly long and mostly redundant but prostitution came out as the greater societal evil.  Porn has become acceptable to the masses and prostitution is not.

When I pressed the students for an explanation for this differential treatment they couldn’t produce one.  In short order, they began to see the hypocrisy of considering one form of paid sex (the kind that puts billions of dollars into corporate pockets) as OK while the other kind of paid sex is still deemed responsible for the downfall of all that is good and right in the world (you know, family values, the sanctity of marriage and crime free neighborhoods).

But I wasn’t satisfied with this transformation, I wanted to go further.  So I asked them if any of the arguments against either pornography or prostitution could be applied to marriage. In other words, could one make an equally valid argument against the institution of marriage using the same criteria used to discredit the sex industry?

And of course you can.  Marriage creates even more violence and crime than either branch of the sex industry.  People are killed every day because  they had the misfortune to fall in love with someone with anger management and control issues.

No, I am NOT suggesting that we do away with marriage.  I think that is a personal choice just like porn and prostitution.  And I think there is a lot to recommend all three. 

What I am suggesting is that it is time to sort out the salient issues and stop conflating what people do for love or money with the dysfunctional ways some people do life.  Violence is a separate issue.  It really doesn’t have anything to do with how you make a living or how you love. 

Violence can take many forms and includes domestic violence, stalking, trafficking in any industry, kidnapping, etc.  If we can stop with the smokescreens we might even be able to do something to reduce violence in its many forms.

Maybe you and your friends can have a similar discussion.  Just make three lists of all the “bad” things you can associate with Porn, Prostitution and Marriage.  You might find they have far more in common than you have been led to believe.  And that alone might help shift our conversations about dysfunctional and abusive behavior to something more productive.

Dignity

Much of the talk about enforcing laws against prostitution employs pleas for “human dignity.”  How can we respond to this argument against prostitution?

 

First, I want to point out that “dignity” is a code term.  It evokes extreme emotions in most people and is rarely questioned for content.  But just exactly what does it mean? While the dictionary defines dignity as “the quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect” the term is most often employed to arouse feelings of shame.  Individuals who violate societal norms are admonished that they must not respect themselves and that they are degrading others and human “dignity” with their actions.  So the term dignity becomes a word intended to CONTROL the actions of others.

 

If in fact human “dignity” is the true value being expressed, then the actions resulting from this kind of speech should reflect the respect it refers to.  In other words, if those who enforce laws and punitive actions against prostitution really were concerned with human dignity, they would NOT use the word as an excuse to punish, humiliate and degrade people involved in prostitution.  As we know, most of the moralists who invoke terms such as “dignity” and “self-respect” take every opportunity to unleash verbal assaults on those who violate their sense of moral propriety.

 

And the enforcement of moral code is really what is at work.  Most “moral” values are relics from religion so inculcated in society that their proponents no longer remember where the moral codes originated from.  But since those most easily influenced by moral pleas are given to emotional reactions instead of calm logic, there is no need to make sense or even conform to the available statistics.

 

The fact is that arresting prostitutes and/or their clients does NOTHING to preserve human dignity.  It DOES however, preserve archaic and dysfunctional views of sex and gender roles while ignoring the economic and racial disparities which tend to drive ALL forms of employment and commerce.

 

Consequently, most major USA cities spend upwards of $10 Million dollars annually to put mostly women of color through the arrest-jail-fine-release machine repeatedly.  This mindless machine grinds up its victims so that they have an arrest record and could not find employment elsewhere if they wanted to.  It also puts the women back out on the streets to earn money to pay the fines for prostitution offenses by committing more prostitution.  Of course, while this system does not fulfill its stated purpose – to empower and “rescue” women from prostitution – it DOES fulfill its TRUE purpose which is to make money for the government while keeping voters happy that “something is being done about prostitution.”

 

Critiques of the current legal sanctions against prostitution in this country aside, let us examine the merits of asserting that prostitution is inherently “dehumanizing” or “degrading” or less than “dignified.”

 

The first tenet of human dignity is freedom of choice.  At least that is the value most often embraced in USA culture.  Taking choice away from a given population reduces their claim to dignity.  Second wave feminism committed a grave error when it decided to embrace the patriarchal value of patronizing women.  Although men and transgenders also work in prostitution, you will notice that public discussions about prostitution NEVER refer to this fact when attempting to arouse the voters’ outrage.  Quite the contrary, we are bombarded with emotional pleas to “rescue” and “save” full grown women who are cast as “victims” who don’t know any better and need “good people” to “re-educate” them to their own value and worth.

 

How can you create dignity for another person when you refuse to listen to them?  When prostitutes are asked what they want and need, most will tell you they want access to equal protection under the law.  They want to be able to prosecute their rapists and they want their murders to matter.  Some prostitutes want out of the profession and some wish to continue their work IN SAFETY.  As with all things prohibited, the laws create the danger. 

 

Decriminalization removes many if not most of the problems associated with prohibition and it allows people in crisis – regardless of their chosen profession to pursue legal recourse and other forms of assistance which are available to other citizens.  While Sweden is held up as a model country, you will NOT find the prostitutes of Sweden extolling the virtues of Sweden’s legislation.  However, New Zealand decriminalized prostitution several years ago and the sex workers of that country ARE much better off because of it.  That to me is what dignity is about.  A society which creates as much respect for diversity and freedom of choice as possible is a dignified and respectful society.

Gross Governor Spitzer and Degradation

A topic which deserves some clarification in light of the recent resignation of New York’s Governor Spitzer is the different working conditions in various branches of the sex industry. In reality, sex work spans a huge industry with drastic differences in pay, the services provided and working conditions. Since many people have trouble thinking clearly as soon as you mention “sex,” I like to draw parallels with food. For example, an 18 year old kid flipping burgers at McDonald’s is doing the same thing world famous chef, Wolfgang Puck, does for a living. They both prepare food for people to eat. Yet no one would argue that these two individuals experience the same working conditions or “job” satisfaction.

When it comes to sex for money though, the media, second wave feminists and voters are quick to equate street prostitution, massage parlors, brothels, incalls, outcalls, escorts and courtesans as the same thing.

I will be the first to admit they are equal “morally.” And that IS the primary reason all prostitution is lumped together – because most people are more concerned with the “moral” implications of prostitution than any other factor. The amount of money you make doesn’t change whether what you do for a living is inherently “good” or “evil.” And if that’s the discussion we want to have, then let’s bring it out in the open and stop dancing behind smokescreens like “oppression” and “sexually transmitted diseases.”

Got you with that last one, huh?

Well, in the United States, the fact is that prostitution only accounts for about 7 to 10 per cent of all sexually transmitted infections. Those numbers are very different in other countries but in our country, condoms are inexpensive and readily available. And contrary to what “abstinence only” sex education preaches, condoms DO work very well if you use them properly. I should know. I used them for over 14 years with over 1800 clients and stayed perfectly healthy the entire time.

Although prostitution was once considered the “fault” of the prostitute, it has become fashionable to cast sex workers as “victims” and label the profession of prostitution “oppressive” and “degrading.” The only way you can make this stick is either by assuming sex is inherently degrading to women unless they do it for free; or by conflating drug addiction and domestic violence with how a person makes a living.

Street prostitution does have a very high incidence of drug addiction and domestic violence. It is woven into the very fabric of this sector of the sex industry. Domestic violence in particular is an accepted part of the street culture. But treating either domestic violence or drug addiction as part of any profession is stupid and ineffective. Educating street prostitutes to the realities of domestic violence and providing domestic violence shelters for working prostitutes would work far better. Incarcerating pimps for domestic violence would also be a good first move.

However as the laws are currently enforced, street prostitutes are regularly rounded up in so-called street sweeps where they are jailed for a few hours, fined and released. They then go back to take a beating from their pimps for not making that night’s “quota” due to the arrest. And they have to “turn” even more “tricks” to pay the fine. It is a ridiculous cycle which turns your local government into a pimp and costs you tons in tax dollars to accomplish nothing (a city like San Francisco spends more than $7 million annually to put street prostitutes through a never ending cycle of arrests and fines).

Additionally, street prostitution accounts for only about 20 per cent of all prostitution in the USA. The rest of it is on the Internet and by referral. Many independent escorts are college students, college graduates and women in their 30’s and 40’s who are fed up with the “glass ceiling” and/or want to supplement their income. These are neither drug addicted nor battered individuals. Instead they are simply people who have made economic choices which fall outside of the norm.

Some say that prostitution cannot constitute a choice because of the limited economic options available to a given population. That is certainly a discussion worth having. But let’s not label it a discussion about prostitution. Economic choice affects all professions but especially dangerous or unpleasant tasks which could include field labor, garbage collection, emptying bedpans and cleaning septic tanks.

I would much rather catch a plane to a beautiful resort and sit on some bored business executive’s face than do any of those jobs. And that doesn’t mean that the average street prostitute shares my sentiments. If she is getting beaten and raped on a regular basis, any other job might look like an attractive alternative. But what if she could catch the plane to a resort and be pampered? Is it really the prostitution which is repugnant? Or isn’t it the violence and hatred which kills the soul? Decisions such as this are really best left to the individual.

One final word. Governor Spitzer was a lousy client. His whining about using condoms illustrates immaturity, selfishness and short-sightedness. His nitpicking about cheap train tickets and mini-bars points to the fact that he wasn’t ready for The Emperor’s Club. But then again, anyone who would order brunettes, blonds and redheads from an agency with such a pretentious name as if he were ordering take-out, reveals himself as a pretender to the throne.

Transferring Sex Work Skills

As both an activist and an entrepreneur, I have found my experience in sex work invaluable.  Some of the skills I have been able to transfer from sex work include:

1.) An ability to communicate with people from ALL countries and cultures regardless of whether we speak the same language or not.

2.) Confidence that I am equal to ALL people regardless of how much wealth, political power or fame they may posses.

3.) An ability to think out of the box when solving life’s inevitable problems.

4.) Sensing the secret and not so secret motivations of individuals and being able to assess their needs.

5.) Building bridges and making connections between seemingly disparate concepts.

6.) Understanding that reality is rarely reflected in conversation or convention.  People have layers to their lives.

7.) Being resilient, resourceful and self-reliant.  I never give up.

Nothing But a Whore

My dad use to veto my thoughts and feelings with these words: “I make the money around here and when you start supporting this family you can have a say in how things are run.  Until then, keep your mouth shut and do what you are told.”

 

As a teenager, I often dreamed about making money so I could have an opinion. 

 

I got married in my early 30’s and my income rose dramatically from a level which barely kept the lights on to a very healthy six figure income.  It wasn’t my job that changed.  I had been an escort for a couple years before I got married.  But once I said “I do,” I did do my best to be a financial knight in shining armor.  Whatever my husband and stepchildren wanted or needed, I went out of my way to make the money to purchase it.  It felt like a self-sacrificing role but of course it was more of a manipulative maneuver given my training around money and power.

 

Despite or maybe because of MY overbearing assertions about being the one in charge because of MY income, I eventually grew tired of being the primary breadwinner in my marriage.  The more money I made the lonelier I felt and the more tired I became.  My husband didn’t express much appreciation for my money and yet he became accustomed to all that it could buy.  Making twice the money he earned never meant being respected as a good provider or a hard worker.  And though he rarely said so, he didn’t like what I did to make my money. 

 

When you are a whore, your family takes your money as penance for your sins – not a gift of your labor.

 

Shortly after I purchased my first home – my mother went to great lengths to brag about my cousin who had recently purchased a mobile home.  I was a bit flabbergasted.  I had just purchased a home in the suburbs worth nearly a half million dollars (1997 prices mind you) and I had done so completely on my own.  It was my credit rating, my savings, my down payment, my name on the contract and absolutely NO one helped me – not even my husband.  With the exception of a friend who loaned me a few thousand to put in the bank to beef up my savings account for 6 months, no one lifted a finger to help me.  Not that I minded that.  I enjoyed being a self-made woman.  Still the fact that my mother took no notice of my accomplishment hurt like hell.  So I asked her, why she was so impressed with the mobile home my cousin had acquired in part due to her husband’s recent death.  My mother replied “Well, SHE worked HARD for HER money.”

 

Apparently sucking cock and dodging serial rapists and vice cops isn’t hard work.  Oh well, it seemed like work at the time.

 

Today I live on a drastically reduced income after retiring from escorting and divorcing my husband four years ago.  Funny, you might think I would have quit prostitution while I was married.  But I didn’t.  I am too stubborn for that.  When I did quit, it wasn’t to please anyone but me.  I had simply gotten fed up with looking over my shoulder and I wanted to be legal for a change.  Towards the end of my escorting career, I had been arrested, audited and robbed or raped – depending upon how you look at it.  I was ready to go live in the woods for awhile and write my first book.

 

Despite the fact that I no longer “turn tricks” people can still assault me with their expectations and projections about sex workers and money.  It seems some people expect me to have more money than I do. And once they ascertain my scaled down lifestyle, they resort to disparaging stereotypes about money hungry whores who can’t save a penny.  I did save money thank you.  But more to the point, the expectation that we are all terribly rich (or should be) is predictable and boring.  It doesn’t matter what I do for a living now.  I used to be a prostitute. 

 

Once a whore – always a whore?  In this profession people see you as transformed from a human to something less than human.  Whores don’t do prostitution – they ARE prostitutes.  There is a difference.

 

As a sex worker I hated losing my status as a human.  But I have never really felt human anyway.  As a woman I have always watched the wicked hand of patriarchy sweep my humanity from view with a few simple incantations: whore, slut, cunt, bitch . . . and with those monosyllabic words I am marked as fair game for all sorts of crimes from rape to murder.

 

Standing mute before my accusers I despair of ever knowing true acceptance.  I may play the seductress, the mistress, the goddess but if my projection of archetypal attributes evidences a crack leaking some semblance of the mundane truth of my existence, then I am catapulted into the dark realms of the persecuted and ostracized.

 

Are there no tears for the whore?  Will the world never find it in their collective hearts to mourn our deaths?  Or honor our labor? 

 

September of 2007, a Bay Area sex worker posted a warning on Craig’s List regarding a man who raped her.  Her blunt account of events sent familiar waves of grief and rage through me:

 “He ended up throwing me down the stairs when he was done, I have a sprained ankle. And he shoved me out the door without my things. I had to flag down a car driving by and they called the police for me, but he was not arrested because I have a record in prostitution so the police saw me as exactly what the rapist saw me as…..Nothing but a Whore…” 

A month later, a Philadelphia judge put the less than human status of sex workers on the law books by ruling that the rape of a prostitute is in fact only “theft of services.”  Sadly, I understand this line of reason.  When I was raped by a man I intended to do business with, I tried to comfort myself with the words “robbery” and “bad debt.”  Maybe if I could just dismiss the whole affair as a “cost of doing business” I wouldn’t have to feel any emotional pain. 

I had conceptualized being arrested for prostitution in a similar fashion and consequently, the night I WAS arrested for prostitution, I smiled for my mug shot and treated the whole incident as something mildly amusing.  Could I treat my own rape as nothing more than a client who failed to pay his bill? Six months after my on-the-job rape, I began behaving like a traumatized rape survivor – not a business savvy entrepreneur.  So much for my psychobabble.  Turns out that I am human after all – and rape is rape – no matter what you do for a living.  If I have to learn such a hard lesson about my own victimization, how hard will it be to change the world’s (and the voting public’s) perceptions?   

Yes, I can be victimized, but I will NEVER be a victim.  I am a survivor.  I survived incest and date rape before I ever started working in the sex industry.  When I grew up and confronted my dad for molesting me, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “So what if I did, you’re a prostitute now, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”  Yeah, I’d like to hurt him for saying that too.

 

Most sex workers are survivors.  If you don’t learn how to take care of yourself in this profession, you don’t last long.  In fact, we are wonderful caretakers.  We take care of ourselves, our clients, our families and our loved ones.  It’s what we do.

 

But the world wants to either vilify us or “rescue” us.  San Francisco’s mayor Gavin Newsom has climbed on board the “anti-trafficking” bandwagon along with every other political player and many non-profits vying for federal funding.  This last year, San Francisco pissed away over $11 million putting poor women of color through the prostitution merry-go-round of arrests and fines. 

 

Having sat in a San Francisco jail cell with street prostitutes for over nine hours the night I was arrested for prostitution, I know the utter absurdity of prostitution laws first-hand.  Most of the street prostitutes are on a first name basis with the cops and there is a ton of flirting on both sides.  It makes the whole arrest-fine-release-arrest cycle a very expensive joke on taxpayers.  But what isn’t funny is the horribly negative impact it has on the day to day lives of those sex workers who are being put through the system on a regular basis. For them, vice functions as yet another pimp they have to pay off one way or another.

 

The real reason the world wants to punish whores is because we violate their prized beliefs about sex, love and money.  In particular, female sex workers flaunt assumptions about women’s sex drive, dependence upon men and preference for marriage.  We are a thorn in society’s side because we refuse to be “good girls” and we don’t even have the decency to feel remorse for our ways. We can also mess with the public’s “need” to know who the whores are when we blend with “good folk.”

 

Recently, I taught a workshop about Sacred Prostitution and most of the women who attended were providers.  A male friend who attended too said something completely inane – these women wouldn’t stand a chance at hooking up with men if they weren’t charging for their services.  On some level, I kind of knew what he was trying to say.  Most of these women appeared as less than sexy that particular day.  But tell me this, how is it that anyone would be able to charge for something they couldn’t give away?  That is NOT logical.  Further, he exhibited an all too typical assumption on the part of client types – thinking sex workers look like they do on the job – all the time.

 

It reminds me of the young lesbian strippers who told me tales of being worshipped and adored while wearing wigs and make-up only to be spat upon on, on their way home from the strip club – unrecognizable to their clients with their short hair, scrubbed faces and piercings. 

 

It isn’t the first time I have witnessed such a superficial and patriarchal view of sex workers. Still it made me angry.  For me, the fact that some men will pay for sex with women they might not want their friends to see them with has always pointed to the discrepancy between what actually fires the libido and what caters to social prominence.  The two have nothing to do with each other and only fools who have bought into the lies of this dominant culture and completely abandoned themselves would believe otherwise.

 

Anyway, the whole idea that sex workers are nothing but a collection of body parts and the image they project is insulting.  Maybe people confuse us with models.  But that is a different type of sex worker.  Whores do more than pose.  Whores are talented people who get paid for their sex appeal AND their skills.  Sacred Prostitution in particular is a profession which usually requires training of some sort – either mentored learning or self-study but you certainly don’t learn something that counter-culture by watching television or reading the newspaper.

 

So in the final analysis, it seems that the phrase “Nothing but a Whore” says it all.  Whether the topic is our money or our bodies or our rights or our safety, we are not to be treated like people.  Every breath we take is suspect and all the normal day to day aspects of our existence which we share with the rest of the human race, are reinterpreted to serve the denigrating stereotypes which fuel our oppression.

 

I agree with the world.  It doesn’t matter what I do for a living – I am a Whore – and damned proud of it.

Flying with the Taliban

What the hell happened? Did I wake up in another century or suddenly find myself living under a repressive regime like the Taliban? I cannot even wrap my brain around this week’s news about 23-year old Kyla Ebbert’s treatment by Southwest Airlines. On her way to a doctor appointment, she boarded her flight on time and according to all policies and procedures. But amazingly, her clothing became an issue. Dressed in a denim miniskirt topped by a shirt which covered her breasts better than some of Hilary Clinton’s blouses cover the bosoms of the presidential candidate, this young woman was obviously persecuted for having blonde hair and a smoking body. Had she looked less enticing, I have no doubt the length of her skirt would NOT have been offensive to anyone. But apparently a passenger complained about Ebbert’s choice in clothing and some busy body unprofessional flight attendant decided to enforce the fashion standards of this one passenger.

That Southwest has not suspended the flight attendant and issued an immediate apology to Ebbert and those of us who had to listen to this misogynistic drivel, is even more shocking. As a frequent flyer on Southwest airlines, I am not only outraged that paying passengers are being screened for “being too sexy” but I can envision the climate of fear it will create. From now on, when those of us who possess breasts and alluring legs are packing for a flight, we may be tempted to wonder if our choice in attire will meet the standards of whatever nut job the airline has hired to bring us our beverage and remind us to put our seats in an upright position. To avoid a traumatizing event such as the one Ebbert was subjected to (whatever the flight attendant said to her had her reduced to tears), some of us may be tempted to opt for the standard American flight suit – sweat pants and a t-shirt.

Southwest can take a bow for destroying any impulse to look attractive which might have existed in those few American travelers who had not converted to the unwashed and unkempt look of the masses. But their greatest achievement is that of setting us squarely back in the 1960’s when we were still debating whether women should be allowed to go braless or wear pantsuits to work. Thanks Southwest.

If you want to join me in giving Southwest Airlines the verbal reprimand they deserve, here is their contact info:

Southwest Airlines P.O. Box 36647 – 1CR Dallas, Texas 75235-1647

Public Relations/Media Relations 214-792-4847

Customer Relations 214-792-4223 Mon – Fri, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm CT

You can also post a comment on the Southwest Airlines blog: http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2007/09/07/a-different-perspective/#comments

Oh and if you want to laugh at the hypocrisy of Southwest Airlines, check out these videos on YouTube. But be forewarned that the images would not pass the airline’s unstated and un-posted standards for proper attire today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7JApjgIGw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDeladw3VyU&NR=1

The Blame Game

To the majority of laypersons (and consequently the bulk of the voting population) mandatory testing seems like the least that should be expected from sex workers whether they work legally or not. It is a foregone conclusion that prostitutes spread disease and therefore need to be controlled in some manner if we are to maintain public health safety. In fact, many otherwise liberal individuals and groups will champion the opportunity to test and tax prostitutes as major incentives to legalize.

It matters little that scientific data do NOT support the common belief that sex workers are major contributors of sexually transmitted infections in the USA. The Centers for Disease Control have conducted several tests for HIV seropositivity in prostitutes and consistently conclude “risk factors for AIDS in female prostitutes may be similar to those in other women living in these [tested] geographic areas.” (3) In other words, although the US government would love to prove otherwise, US prostitutes spread no more disease than US housewives and college girls. Some evidence even supports the contention that the presence of prostitutes DECREASES the incidence of STIs as Rita Brock and Susan Thistlethwaite point out in their book, Casting Stones: “When the Chicken Ranch, the famous Texas brothel, was closed, the number of gonorrhea cases in the general population rose substantially. Venereal disease also rose substantially when brothels were closed from 1917 to 1920. U.S Department of Public Health statistics have been consistently reporting that only 5 percent of sexually transmitted disease in the United States is related to prostitution, compared to 30 to 35 percent that is transmitted among sexually active teenagers. . . . The National Research Council notes: ‘Many people fear that prostitutes (who by definition have multiple sex partners) will not adopt safer sex practices with their clients and will therefore be the conduit through which HIV infection will spread to the heterosexual population. Yet existing data on prostitutes do not support this concern.’ “

3. Centers for Disease Control, MMWR Weekly, Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Antibody to Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Female Prostitutes, March 27, 1987 / 36(11);157-61 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000891.htm