Speaking of prostitution, trafficking, and other redefinitions, thanks to links I followed from Susannah Breslin’s The Reverse Cowgirl I’ve run across a whole string of assorted sex workers (strippers, escorts, prostitutes, and combinations thereof.)
None of these women are “trafficked” in the sense anti-“pornstitution” activists mean. And that’s a problem because without a realistic understanding of who you’re trying to help you might not be helping anyone at all. It’s also worth pointing out that as you read their work you get a sense that their jobs are often dangerous, shitty, stressful, and at best only financially rewarding. I might add they’re also tremendously exploited by their customers, by their often-closed-shop referring agencies (Las Vegas sounds like Hell), by hotel security that can abuse them at will because they can turn them over to the police for arrest, by customers who can stiff them or abuse them at will because they, in turn, can call in hotel security. None of the women in this specific list seem to have pimps but they mention that others in their professions certainly do — although as Roberta Perkins pointed out for a Australian Institute of Criminology study, the majority of non-street/non-subsistance prostitute’s pimps are a lot more like massively parasitical deadbeat boyfriends than too-cool-for-school dudes running stables of “ho’s.”
It sounds an awful lot like the lives of “contract” California strawberry “growers” i.e. really difficult except you also make a bit more money and have sex with people you otherwise probably wouldn’t. Which means, in turn, that while, in my opinion, they could really benefit from a heck of a lot of affirmative social and legal policy alterations they nor their colleagues aren’t the mindless, agencyless, “prostituted” thralls of lore, legend, and fiction as proposed by proponents of the amended Wilberforce/TVPA.
Oh, and another thing? If you come out of reading their blogs thinking it’s not work you really want to do (at least, as with a lot of blogs, diaries, and letters to the editor, not the parts most of us are most motivated to take the time to vent about) they’re not inexplicable people. In fact they’re just about as cool, interesting, or socially compatible people as… the average person you’d work with in any other high-stress service industry.
Oh, and speaking of shitty options, sounds like Debauchette has a problem with a former client that it would be just lovely if she could call the cops about… and surely would… if she didn’t have that pesky much-greater-than-zero chance of either outright arrest or knowledge that she’d go into a database somewhere “for later.”
Anyway, I think all are probably indispensible reading if you want to do something about prostitution besides a) make yourself feel really, really virtuous and b) make their lives increasingly miserable, marginal, and dangerous. Is there trafficking? Yes, and since their pimps and/or traffickers are bloody unlikely to let them have their own blogs they’re necessarily silenced such that we don’t hear their side. But! Is every prostitute “trafficked?” No. But those who do have blogs but don’t just go humming and skipping to work for $1000 here and $5000 there might have some positive suggestions. If anyone bothered to ask, or listen.
Oh, and just to be clear, to condemn working conditions, economic circumstances, and legal climate isn’t to condemn sex work per se. I’m just saying life shouldn’t have to be like David Mamet’s Glenngary Glenn Ross for anybody and I have a hard time with people who’s idea of a good deed is to make things worse.
Submitted by 2232 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-18 21:35.
Figleaf,
Thanks for the post- I am always very glad to see outsiders to "the industry" become sex worker allies against absurd and haphazard anti-trafficking campaigns and catch-all, anti-"pornstitution" feminist claims. And I do very much appreciate the props.
You've said that "to condemn working conditions, economic circumstances, and legal climate isn't to condemn sex work per se," and that's great. I do however get the sense that, because myself and other bloggers sometimes use the internet to vent, it can become too easy to assume that our jobs are "often dangerous, shitty, stressful, and at best only financially rewarding." They can be those things, sometimes, for some more than for others. I personally have never felt what I consider real danger- or rather, I have never really felt more in danger at work than I do day to day in the heterosexist world we live in (though being recognized or followed out of the parking lot are always concerns). I often get pissed and stressed out, but no more than when I worked shitty food service jobs, and much less seriously because the financial reward *always* averages out to so much more than what I made toasting bagels. Of course, we do have the added aspect of being naked and selling sex (I'm a stripper, I think it counts as selling sex)- which brings on it's own headaches and complexities, and I change my mind about what it means and how it affects me pretty much on the hour, every hour.
In junior high, did you ever tell your friends a story about how much you hated your mom? How your mom was a real bitch for not letting you go to such-and-such punk show because she knew you planned on sneaking in? And then the next day you're talking to your friend on the phone when your mom comes on the line and tells you to hang up NOW because it's midnight, and your friend says, "god, your mom's a real tight-ass bitch, huh?" and you just wanted to punch your friend in the face?
It's a loose analogy, and I can't say that I love sex work quite like I love my mom, but that's often how I feel about writing about my job on the internet and how I take it when I hear other people remark about how I've been "tremendously exploited." I can't, of course, speak for the others on your list. You might want to check out this amazing post by debauchette
written very recently- she has amazing things to say on the topic.
One final word- analogy- that I think is really useful and that I hope will protect me against charges of having too limited and to privileged a scope. Sex work is kind of like garment manufacture. We have, on the one end, incredibly exploitative and sometimes truly coerced labor under terrible conditions with shitty and restricted pay. On the other end, you've got Built By Wendy- just a college educated girl doing her own thing and hanging out in Brooklyn. And past Wendy, you've got Donatella Versace. High end, with considerable investments and advanced degrees required. There's a lot in-between.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
Graham
[Hi Graham. First of all yes, I agree it's a little silly to distinguish much between different kinds of sex work. (Audacia Ray just had a great post about that by the way, about how it's a mistake to say "yes, but I'd never do *that!") Second, I totally get that while outsiders confuse sex *worker* blogs with *sex* blogs they're *worker* blogs first, and that means venting. Third I also totally get that you'd prefer to do what you do, and that you'd even feel safer, than you would have doing, say, food or bar service. (I haven't done sex work but I *have* done food and bar service, and yikes!) And finally, without intending to run you all together, I was thinking a lot about this post by Las Vegas Courtesean, which really *really* would have gone better if escorting was legal. Anyway, I totally agree a lot of jobs suck far worse -- in almost any dimension one can choose -- than a lot of sex work, which is why I referenced, for instance, strawberry "contractors" and the fictional but sadly very familiar S.O.B's in Glenngarry Glenn Ross. Thanks for dropping by. --fl]
Submitted by 2232 (not verified) on Thu, 2008-06-19 14:48.
Reading some of these blogs has been an enlightening and revolutionary for me. Before, I believed that women become prostitutes because they have huge sex drives was a complete myth. Not that I don't recognize that women have sex drives and that they can be all consuming. I held a negative attitude towards prostitution that reading some of these blogs has brought into light.
One thing that this hasn't change, and to some extent has even reinforced is the resentment that I feel towards the men who go to prostitutes. I understand that it may not be completely about "sex". It may not be about sex at all, but rather intimacy. However, this is exactly what generates the resentment. Hiring a prostitute or escort because you need emotional comfort seems absolutely hypocritical. It is the easy way out. It is the way to get emotional support and intimacy with having to give emotional support and understanding.
One of the bloggers you linked to (sorry, I don't remember which one), wrote about many of her clients being married and not getting the affection, intimacy or emotional support that they need from their wives. All I could think was,"well, they probably don't get it because they don't give it. If they would give the same thing, they would probably get it in return." Although I realize that people are not 2 dimensional and that relationships are more complicated that than, I still have that immediate reaction.
Furthermore, I feel contempt for men who pay women to boost their ego...which is how I see men who go to strip bars. Perhaps this is also a false notion or a bit of sexism on my part?
[Yup, I agree that too much sex work is based on false assumptions about men and women. That doesn't mean there can't be, or isn't, sex work without those assumptions. Just that there's not a lot of people out there promoting it. (My metric, by the way, would be that you'd see roughly equal numbers of male and female customers. Which *might* sound implausible but I think just means the assumptions are really entrenched.) Thanks, Christina. --fl]
Submitted by 2232 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-25 19:47.
Thanks for the post. I think that people are finally seeing that all of us aren't the typical working girl but are quite normal and you may never know who we are if you happened to meet us in a normal situation.
I admit though that I, along with others, seem to focus on the negative. Its hard to write something interesting or gripping when things are just going easy and steadily good with work. I tend to only pick up a pen or my laptop when something major happens to me which in turn, makes my life look like a bunch of bad things happen to me and I am constantly dealing with cheats for customers and being arrested, when in fact I am not. When I have lulls in posting on my blog it probably means that things are going good that there is nothing grabbing my attention to post. I do know for a fact that I tend to make more on average than most girls in other cities and that makes it worth it to me. I don't like to go into details as far as what I make because I am not about advertising myself and "ooh look at how much I can make compared to you". It's not a competition its just a diary of what goes on :)
It makes me realize that I kind of come off the wrong way so I will try and do better about reporting the joys and not just the negative.
On average I have about one major run in every 6mo. to a year with security. Thats good odds if I am working 6 days a week and 8 hrs a day on average. I have about one call every other month that the customer is just a complete imbecile and ends up bad. Other than that people can generally be rude and idiotic on a regular basis... which I compare to people who drive: they constantly act like fools behind the wheel.
Anyway... thanks for the post!
[Hi LVC. I know what you mean. I used to keep a diary years and years ago and if you were to look at it now you'd think I had the worst possible life ever. Things were actually pretty tough a lot of the time back then but like you and I think a lot of people when I was having a *good* time I never thought about writing in it. Still, getting shaken down at all by customers, or chased around by hotel security, is pretty unacceptable considering you're just trying to do your job. Oh, and the agency fees and their pay-no-matter-what policy is pretty extortionate too. Anyway, I don't think very many of you are "typical working girls" at all... which makes that word "typical" kind of a problem since everyone seems to assume it's true. Kind of like the old joke about what every Volvo owner believes: "All Volvos run perfectly; mine's the *only* exception." Which means people are trying to create sex-worker policies for a "typical" worker who doesn't really exist, at least not the way most people seem to assume. Thanks! --fl]