Sex Work Read online

  When I came back to the United States in 1993, I was able to take a year off, living on savings from the only high salary I ever had (or am likely to have), and one of the things I did was to explore e-mail, and to a lesser extent, the internet. As sex workers in different cities in the U.S. and other countries also began to get on-line, often at my urging, I was able to start a completely informal mailing list. At first it was just a question of my sending mail to everyone I had on my list, and their responding to me; then I circulated their responses. Eventually, many people on the list developed their own lists, and the number of people on the various lists started to grow. At some point, we took the bull by the horns, so to speak, and started a formal listserve mailing list, which Lacey Sloan was able to house at the State University of New York/Buffalo. In fact, we developed several lists: one for sex workers and invited, long-term allies; one for newcomers to the movement (sex workers and allies); and eventually one for academics focusing on research on sex work. Partly as a result of the ease of communication with e-mail, Norma Jean Almodovar then worked with the Center for Sex Research at California State University/Northridge to organize an International Conference on Prostitution (ICOP) in March 1997, which drew sex workers, academics, and people with their feet in both camps. Out of that conference came the decision to form the International Sex Workers Foundation for Arts, Culture, and Education (ISWFACE), led by Norma Jean and a board consisting of sex worker activists and artists.

  Meanwhile, Sex Work has profoundly influenced the discussion of sex work around the world, with translations in German and Japanese. The proceedings of the second World Whores Congress, which was held in Brussels in 1986, were published in the book edited by Gail Pheterson, A Vindication of the Rights of Whores, which was translated into Spanish. Many sex workers who formerly felt very isolated have said Sex Work gave them the space to think, talk, and organize about their work, and some of them have formed organizations in their own countries; for example, SWEETLY in Japan and SWEAT in South Africa. Non-sex workers were also influenced by the book, and there is a growing body of writing on sex work, including history, public health policy, and philosophy, written by academics supportive of sex workers’ rights (e.g., Bernstein, 1995; Califia, 1994; Chancer, 1993; Chapkis, 1997; Clements, 1996; Jenness, 1993; McElroy, 1995; Shrage, 1994).

  Sex Work was revolutionary, the first book to amplify the voices of sex workers (a term we owe to Carol Leigh). Since then, a sex worker, Nickie Roberts, wrote the first major history of prostitution from the sex worker’s point of view (Roberts, 1992), Eva Pendleton collaborated on a queer studies anthology (Colter, et al., 1996), Carol Queen published a collection of essays about her work (Queen, 1997), and Jill Nagle edited an anthology of sex workers’ writing (Nagle, 1997). In the works are at least two books of writings by male sex workers, and a book of writings by sex workers about clients.

  The effort by some self-described feminists to silence sex workers who did not agree to portray themselves as victims has clearly failed.

  Priscilla Alexander

  New York

  June 1998

  Notes:

  Bernstein, Laurie. Sonia’s Daughters: Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

  Califia, Pat. Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1994. See “Whoring in Utopia,” pp. 242-248.

  Chancer, Lynn Sharon. “Prostitution, Feminist Theory, and Ambivalence: Notes from the Sociological Underground.” Social Text 37 (Winter 1993): 143-172.

  Chapkis, Wendy. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. New York: Routledge, 1997.

  Clements, Tracy M. “Prostitution and the American Health Care System: Denying Access to a Group of Women in Need.” Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 11(49) (1996): 50-98.

  Colter, E.G., W. Hoffman, E. Pendleton, A. Redick, and D. Serlin, eds. Policing Public Sex: Queer Politics and the Future of AIDS Activism. Boston: South End Press, 1996.

  Jenness, Valerie. Making It Work: The Prostitutes’ Rights Movement in Perspective. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993.

  McElroy, Wendy. XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. See Chapter 7, “Interviews with Women in Porn,” pp. 146-191, and Chapter 9, “A Coyote Meeting,” pp. 202-230.

  Nagle, Jill, ed. Whores and Other Feminists. New York: Routledge, 1997.

  Pheterson, Gail. The Prostitution Prism. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 1996.

  Queen, Carol. Real, Live, Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1997.

  Roberts, Nickie. Whores in History: Prostitution in Western Society. London: HarperCollins, 1992.

  Shrage, Lauri. Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion. New York: Routledge, 1994.

  Part I: IN THE LIFE

  Telling a Woman/Driving at Night

  Carol Leigh

  I tell a woman

  what work I do for money

  Don’t you ever feel afraid?

  She asks, staring into the headlights

  through a curtain of long, brown hair

  which obscures half her face

  like Veronica Lake

  Yes, I’m afraid

  Sometimes I try not to feel afraid

  Four months ago I was raped

  I was afraid of being tortured or killed

  I answer, driving my dark green Vega

  wearing a turquoise angora sweater

  dark red lipstick, new hairdo, good pants

  I’m stronger, won’t quit

  and they’re not going to stop me

  She laughs and pushes the hair behind her ear

  Bars of light drift upward, over our eyes

  Living on the Edge

  Peggy Morgan

  Exotic dancer. A poised, well-dressed woman with the body of a fashion model, she exudes the kind of sexiness that has men dropping at her feet. She’s somehow different from the rest of us, gracefully dancing her way through intricately choreographed shows to sultry bluesy music in glittery costumes. She drives fancy cars, wears expensive clothes, and off-hours, she hobnobs with smooth-mannered, wealthy underworld types.

  Is this what you see when you think of a stripper? Take those surprised, quizzical looks I get when I tell people what I do: who, this short, chubby dyke, a stripper? Is she hiding some “exceptional” body under those faded jeans and old sweatshirts? What does she do with all her money? She lives in a dump and doesn’t own a car — or even a television.

  I’ve been stripping in Boston’s Combat Zone for five and a half years, and I can tell you, it’s not quite what you’d expect. Despite my college degree, and aspects of the job I find unpalatable, I’m quite comfortable with it and am in no great rush to change.

  So, what is it like? For the most part, I’ve worked the 1:00 to 8:00 afternoon shift. The money’s better at night, but the staff is rougher, customers drunker, and you’re required to lay out a considerable amount of money for costumes. “Costumes” on the day shift are, for the most part, bargain basement lingerie or stripped-down street clothes: many dancers do their shows in just a blouse and underwear. “Show” is more euphemism than description. We do four sets (more or less, depending on how many dancers are working) of three songs each, which just involve walking back and forth along the rutted wooden runway with an occasional calculated wiggle or shimmy here and there.

  But, then, dancing isn’t the point of this business. In between shows, we are required to hustle seven dollar “ladies’ drinks,” for which we are paid a one dollar commission if we make or exceed the daily quota of twelve. Another dollar goes to the bartender, and five to the house.

  Then, there’s “dirty mixing.” In the past, that included being able to hide away in a dark corner with a customer and turning a regular trick, but in the last year or two the vice squad has paid us frequent and unwelcome visits in an attempt to close down the Combat Zone, so we’re prett
y limited to hand jobs. Not that we can’t get picked up on prostitution charges for that — it has happened — but it’s easier to hide and cut off what we’re doing if an undercover cop (most of whom we know by face, if not name) shows up.

  The usual price (we call it a “tip”) for a hand job is ten to twenty dollars, though sometimes we’re paid more, above and beyond what the customer has spent on drinks. Naturally, the house doesn’t want to lose out on the customer’s money, so we’re required to get a “bottle” if we’re to “fool around.” “Bottles” start at twenty-one dollars for a regular 12-oz. beer (three dollar commission for us) and thirty-five or fifty dollars for large mixed drinks (five-and seven-dollar commissions respectively).

  Customers run the gamut — we get our share of weirdos, but most are perfectly normal guys. The differences between them lie in how they see and treat us. The best of them come into the bar knowing what it is they want — to get off — and what we want — money — and can pull the transaction off smoothly, making pleasant conversation and treating us with respect. In exchange for their money, they get a willing ear to listen to them, or in the case of hand jobs, a witness to the potency of their pricks, a reassurance that they are still powerful, real men.

  But the macho, insecure types need more. On some level they know what a great equalizer prostitution is, and they aren’t satisfied with a simple business transaction. Not only do we have to work at getting them off and making them feel good, but we have to put up with their clumsy, grubby hands pawing our bodies — and pretend to enjoy it. It’s not that these customers really want to please a woman — most of the time these are the same ones who’ll argue about money or make a fuss about having to pay up front. They simply want to feel power over the whore, who is by implication of her class and gender someone beneath them.

  All told, I make about four hundred dollars a week between dancing, commissions and “tips.” There are no benefits, no sick pay, vacation pay, overtime or insurance. Extra money can be made by meeting customers outside the bar on our own time for “dates” (tricks), but if you miss a day, you miss your pay.

  Doesn’t seem like the kind of job you’d find a politically aware lesbian in, does it? I was out of the closet as a lesbian and an ardent feminist for three years before a large debt in the middle of my senior year in college brought me into the Combat Zone. Stripping three days a week was the only way I could make ends meet, pay for school, pay off my debt and still continue my studies.

  In those days, I remained carefully closeted at work, and outside, confused by both the cultural stigma of sex work and the apparently immutable feminist party-line that such work was degrading and oppressive to women, I kept my mouth shut.

  Sure, some of it was difficult. The first time I did a hand job, I was paid forty dollars, went in the bathroom and threw up. I had never been shy about being naked, but since I’ve always been “overweight” by most people’s standards, I was very sensitive to the occasional comment or jeer about my weight from a customer, and was convinced that anyone who declined to buy me a drink was refusing because I was too fat.

  When I first started, I was afraid of most of the other dancers. They seemed very tough and street-wise, prone to fighting at the least provocation. Either they’ve gotten less tough over the years, or I am more used to it. Now I’m one of the oldest and have the most seniority, so I rarely run into any trouble — and then only if the other dancer is very drunk or high and I’ve unwittingly pushed one of her buttons.

  Most know that I’m gay. I don’t hide the fact, but I don’t mention it often. The few women I can speak openly to about my life have either had relationships with women at one time or another, or have gay (usually male) friends outside. Still, they see no connection between telling queer jokes or insulting a customer by calling him a “faggot” and how I might feel about this. As far as they’re concerned, I’m gay because I’m disgusted with men — which they can identify with — rather than because I prefer women.

  There have been times when I’ve had to deal with one of the dancers going around telling my regular customers that I am a lesbian in an effort to take their business away from me. This infuriates me, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t talk about my private life at work very much. Some customers have refused to sit with me again, especially since a lot of hysterical misinformation about AIDS has found its way into the daily newspapers. On the other hand, I find it even more repulsive when customers are titillated by the distorted notions they have about my lifestyle.

  There seems to be a myth on the outside that a disproportionate number of lesbians work in this business — which is pure bunk. In all the years I’ve been there, I’ve known only three other lesbians (one of whom I got the job for) and a handful of bisexual women who worked at the bar. There is no unity among us either; they seem very uncomfortable when I try to acknowledge our common ground. So I only offer occasional polite questions about their lovers or whether they’ve been to any of the gay bars lately.

  Once in a while, I’ll have a dancer come on to me — with the expectation that simply because I’m a lesbian I’m dying to jump her bones. Inevitably she’s surprised and even insulted when I politely refuse her advances.

  It’s not worth trying to raise anybody’s consciousness — I’m there to work and with all the booze and drugs flowing through the place, rhetoric will just go in one ear and out the other. The best I can do is just be myself and let my co-workers draw their own conclusions and hope they’ll be positive.

  Most of the dancers are straight, in their early twenties, and from poor or working class backgrounds. Some graduated from working the streets; a few still work for pimps. Many are single mothers working to supplement their meager welfare checks. Beyond meeting the basic necessities for food, clothing and shelter, working in the Combat Zone is the only way they can afford the symbols of success that society has dangled in front of them all of their lives: nice clothes, jewelry, cocaine, eating out in fancy restaurants. Compared to the alternatives — slinging hamburgers for minimum wage, assembly-line drudgery, or trying to subsist on paltry government subsidies — putting up with the groping hands of a few drunk men looks pretty good.

  Ah yes. But I’m different: I come from a middle- class family, and I have a college degree. How often I hear: “You really could do better — why don’t you find a real job?” What do people really mean when they set out to save me from this sordid business?

  There are the assumptions that women who go into sex work are uncontrollably sexual, that it’s something intrinsic to their nature, like a disease; and that poor and working class women are innately morally inferior and more sexual than the happy upper classes, who can “control themselves.” Therefore it’s okay for them to do this, but I really should be “above all that.”

  Well, let me tell you, the bottom line in this business is money. Nobody — not myself, not the other women — enjoys being pawed, poked, prodded and fucked by men we wouldn’t give the time of day if we met them elsewhere. The fact is, women still only make sixty-seven cents to every dollar men earn, and have to do twice as well to be thought half as good.

  In my own experience with “square” jobs, I’ve put up with condescension and sexual harassment that either would take complicated grievance procedures to redress — with no guarantees — or was too “subtle” to confront without arousing accusations of oversensitivity and craziness. Besides, I had to worry about being fired if it was discovered that I’m gay — all this for a wage I could not live on. I’m not stupid or lazy, but I never managed to hold down any other job for longer than six months. The fact is, there’s a livable wage to be made in the sex business, and we decide when, where and with whom we’ll do what. Money talks, bullshit walks, and we don’t have to put up with anything we don’t want.

  Yes, we are more comfortable with our bodies and sexuality than most people. Taking our clothes off in public, we realize there is nothing sacred or secret about our bodies. We don’
t have “private parts,” dismembered from the rest; they are parts of the whole. Having a customer fondle a breast, for instance, may not be pleasant, especially if he’s rough, but it doesn’t feel like being violated. It’s part of a job, and really no different than if he touched an elbow. It’s not sexual; it’s work. Using our whole bodies to earn a living makes it clear how much sexual feelings really come from our minds: a lover may touch the same way a customer does, but produce an entirely different feeling.

  Over the past two years, I’ve cautiously come out in the women’s community as a stripper. This was made easier by the fact that some women had begun to talk and write about sexuality openly and honestly. Not surprisingly, the debates over pornography, butch/femme and s/m have erupted into roaring controversies, with those on the exploring-sexuality side denounced as being brainwashed and as oppressing other women. We are split into good girls and bad girls — just like society’s Good Women and Whores. Only this time the fears of moral inferiority and uncontrollable sexuality are couched in feminist political language.

  Confusing autonomous sexual explorations (like s/m and butch/femme playing) with acts of real violence, and limiting, prescribed male/female roles is like confusing the prostitute with prostitution. A prostitute can’t very well tell a trick the truth: “I really just want your money — I don’t want to touch you or have you touch me,” if she’s to have any business. But she also knows that what she does for money is not an expression of her own sexuality. It may look like sex but it sure doesn’t feel like anything she does with lovers. In the same way, for example, the whips, chains and role-playing of s/m don’t mean a desire to hurt anyone, but rather a desire to explore intense feelings of power, trust and vulnerability in a sexual context.

  Society decrees sex a moral issue — especially for women. Beneath this facade, we find that this is really a political tool, designed to maintain the social order. We’re immediately put into the “loose,” immoral camp if we admit to a desire for women, or an interest in multiple sexual partners, playing with physical restraint, costumes or gender roles — in short, anything that strays too far from the notion that women don’t want sex for any reason other than to please and serve men.