So You Love A Hooker

Tags

discrimination, escort, friends and family, Love, money, personal stories, rants, Relationships, sex industry, Sex Work, stigma, whore shame

For the partners of sex workers:

So you met a hooker and at first you were cool with it. You didn’t freak out when they first told you about their job and you didn’t freak them out with your response. You started seeing each other and maybe you had some reservations but figured you would work through them with time (read: talk them into your way of thinking). Or you figured whatever you had with them wasn’t so serious so it didn’t need to be a big deal. Or perhaps you even found their job a bit of a turn on. Or maybe you were never ok with it but you wanted to try to make it work anyway. Whatever your thoughts on sex work were you probably realised that it wasn’t your place to say anything… well not yet….

But that was then and this is now. Things are different now.. right? Now that you are (dun-dun-duuuun!!) in love……Over time and as your feelings for them have grown, you’ve found your acceptance for their job has diminished. In the early days you may have repeatedly declared your complete support for them and their work or promised that you would never ever ask them to quit, and maybe you even meant it, but all of a sudden things have changed and now you’re not so sure. This situation might be all new to you, but your partner has probably been through this so many times before like most hookers have. We get it… Apparently it’s different when you love us.

So now what?

Your first decision is whether to talk to your partner about the problems you’re having with their job or to just try working through it by yourself. I suggest you do a bunch of the second before doing the first. Read, think, talk to someone, then read and think some more. When emotions like jealousy take over or we lose control over those feelings of possessiveness, it’s likely that we are not going to be thinking clearly.  These feelings are very normal and human, but rarely rational. Taking time to work through your feelings will help ensure you don’t start something in the heat of the moment that you don’t know how to finish. And if you do ultimately decide to talk about your feelings with your partner it will help to be clear about your emotions and your needs, to have considered their point of view and be prepared to offer appropriate solutions.  If you’re going to open this can of worms you want to be sure about your feelings and what you want.

If you can wait till you have time to express yourself in a calm, thoughtful and respectful way it will be much safer and healthier and be more likely to produce outcomes that you can both live with. In the meantime can I suggest you try hanging out with other sex workers and their partners. Being in a loving respectful relationship with a sex worker isn’t as out there as you might think. Lots of people love sex workers and manage or struggle while being committed to loving them. You are not the only one expected to do this. Hanging out with others in the industry might help you gain some perspective both in regards to your own feelings, those of your partner and the reality of the work.

Even though your feelings may be irrational it would be unreasonable to expect that you will always be able to ignore them. If problems persist and you’re sure you’re not just having a moment, this post has some ideas and suggestions that might help you negotiate something more palatable to your sensibilities, whilst being respectful of your partner and their needs. And hopefully in the process you will become more aware of your emotions and be better at communicating, regulating and acting on them.

Often feelings about this stuff come from possessiveness, jealousy and misconceptions, you might even be experiencing some guilt or shame or fear. All perfectly normal human feelings and common characteristics, in varying degrees, of most loving relationships. These feelings can be overwhelming or complex or inevitable or over ruling. They sometimes undermine our own logic or long held values and they usually cause confusion and pain. Our emotions affect us all differently at different times and are triggered by different things. At times they may feel all consuming, we lose perspective and the issues can become magnified and out of proportion. Wait for the intensity to pass and when you’re feeling calm try to pinpoint what it is about your partner’s work that triggers these emotions.

Believe it or not, not everyone will understand or agree or feel the same way about the same things you do. These feelings might be common, but for each of us it is often different things that bother us. Your partner might not know what it is about their work that upsets you. For example it might seem obvious to you that you don’t want to hear the details of their work but they might be completely oblivious to the fact that this upsets you, or worse, they may even think you want to know.

Figuring out if there are specific aspects of their work that are bothering you more than others can be hard work and can take time. You will need to try and be reasonable and open minded here. Dig deep. Don’t be satisfied with a thought like ‘my trigger is my partner fucking other dudes for money’. You will need to push yourself further. Try to be more specific. You want to pinpoint what it actually is about them fucking other dudes for money makes you feel the way you do. Is it that you hate them visiting strangers late at night because you are worried about their safety. Maybe you hate it when they change plans with you so they can go to work. Maybe you hate it when they answer their work phone in front of you and you hear them negotiating with their clients. Maybe you hate the hours they work. Maybe it’s that you want them to save something intimate just for you. Or you’re concerned they might fuck your boss or someone you know. Who knows exactly what it is that pushes your buttons, it’s possible you don’t even know. Ultimately you might just want them to quit but if that isnt an option for whatever reason, being clear about what it is that upsets you the most will help you to negoriate a compromise about how they work that takes your feelings into account. For example: in calls only not out calls,  set or changed hours of work, changes to what service they provide or how they advertise, changes to where they work etc. Take your time to work through your feelings but try not to be  pass agg while you do it.

The next step is to put yourself in their shoes. Consider their reasons for working. What can you offer them in that department? There is no point trying to come to any agreement with your partner if their reasons for working in the first place have not been addressed or at least considered; that would be setting yourselves up for failure. Obviously for many of us a huge consideration is the money – are you in a position to provide for your partner financially? But don’t presume that money is the only thing that it’s about. There are many other reasons we choose sex work such as independence, the control and autonomy we have over our work. Or we may enjoy aspects of the work such as the healing and human side or the performance side or maybe even the sex and drama. It might be the flexibility or the easy access. What can you offer to help meet your partner’s needs in these area.

When considering your partners reasons think outside the square. Don’t just consider the reasons they may have vocalised, if you really want to cover your bases, be aware that there maybe reasons they work that you don’t know about or that they are not even clear about it. So many of us are forced to defend our work all the time in terms of money and need that we often are not comfortable or clear about the parts we do enjoy or do because we like. What else about the work might suit your partner?

By now you should have three lists, one that pinpoints the specifics of what upsets or bothers you about your partner doing sex work (your bottom line) one that considers the reasons they have chosen sex work ( their anticipated bottom line), and one that explores what you can offer to meet their anticipated needs or address their reasons (your bargaining tools). It can help to physically write it all down so you can start to build a picture of the situation and begin to develop possible solutions and suggestions to bring to the conversation.

Consider your approach to the conversation. Play out the conversation in your mind. If you want to have an honest and useful conversation with your partner about their work; don’t give them a reason to lie to you. If they have been able to trust you with the details of how, why, when, where they work, don’t fuck it up now by being an asshole. If you go in all demanding with ultimatums there are a few ways it’s going to go… 1. you break up 2. Your partner says they will do what you want just to keep the peace and you but continues to work secretly 3. They do quit resulting in them not having their needs met and holding onto some resentment towards you.

Stay focussed on the goal of the conversation which is to develop agreements that take into account their reasons for working and your specific concerns. If the conversation gets out of hand bring it back to what it is you need to be ok with this situation, not what you don’t need. Remember it’s the job you have the problem with; you love your partner, so don’t abuse or insult them or call them names.

Don’t expect or accept miracles as a solution. Whatever the conclusion of the conversation don’t make big promises or make them promise anything big. If you do come to an agreement, trial it first. Take it day to day and give your selves a time frame to check back in with each other about how its working for you both. This is just the beginning of a process.

I was able to successfully negotiate around these things with my partner once many years ago but when I tried it again more recently with a new partner it didn’t go so well, but that’s a story for another time. Remember that all relationships can be difficult regardless of what job any of us are doing so be careful to not blame all the problems on their work. Be aware that your insecurities might not disappear even if they stopped doing sex work. In any job your partner works in they might meet potential lovers – You need to be able to trust them. Be honest with yourself and don’t make them jump through hoops if there is a chance the issues are yours and nothing to do with the work. If your partner does quit or change the way they work because of your feelings, don’t take that as them repenting. Don’t make them apologise or feel guilty for their past. Encourage them to be able to talk and think about their experiences without feeling ashamed.

Don’t try to change them, You fell in love with them and their experiences are a part of them. There are so many pros to dating pros, their sassiness and independence, their skills and outfits, their connections and stories. Whores know their worth and you’re lucky enough to get to spend time with them for free – others have to pay for the pleasure!

But If you really hate their job so much and after working on it you believe there is no way around it do yoursselves a favour. Don’t stick around contributing to a toxic situation if all you can do is be hurtful and unhelpful.

If you cant or dont want to deal with it just be a grown up and walk away.

the who’s who of punter forums

Tags

brothels, clients, discrimination, forums, online, personal stories, punters, rants, reviews, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, the boss

Once upon time about back when local hookers were just beginning to utilise the internet for business, i met a Annie. She was a tech savvy sex worker with an established online identity who introduced me to a whole new world. She showed me around sex industry forums, review sites and advertising options. It was all new to me and i spent hours reading the various posts and reviews engrossed in this ‘client community’. It felt like i was gaining some kind of inside knowledge about the industry, the workers and our clients. As i read the candid comments by the anonymous ‘punters’ as they refer to themselves, I felt like i was getting a true sense of what clients think, a real insight, a glimpse of our industry from their perspective. I was excited to see if anyone had reviewed me, so i searched my name, but i didnt find any mention. I began to check back regularly looking for my name but i was also curious to read what clients were thinking and saying.

Being the talkative and opinionated whore i am, i didnt last as a voyeur for long. I started joining in with some of the forum conversations, using my work name, keeping my comments sweet and fluffy and trying my best to stay endearing and in character. It wasnt always easy and plenty of times i had to bite my tongue (or sit on my hands as the case maybe) to stop myself getting into heated debate and risk turning potential clients off. I didnt always succeed.

It was only after i began to advertise occasionally online that i got my first review. When I saw my name  I felt almost famous. I read the post and breathed a sigh of relief that it was a positive review. Other clients had commented on the in response, all expressing their interest in seeing me as a result of this recommendation. I felt full of confidence and in demand. I had always had return business and good feedback from my clients in the past but for some reason this felt different, I read it over and over. I had no idea who it was that reviewed me, it could have been anyone and i started me wondering which of my bookings would result in the next review. I kept checking back at the forum to find out the latest gossip and see what they were saying about me. Out of curiosity I read the other workers reviews feeling envious of their outstanding reputations or sympathetic when it wasnt so good.

It wasnt long before i got my second review. It was another good one, followed by more comments from clients who were keen to see me. But reading this review didnt give the same thrill, actually it made me feel uncomfortable. It went into specific gory detail, giving a blow by blow account of his time with me and the service he received. It was almost like reading a tacky story from a picture mag and I couldnt help but cringe. This time i knew which client had written the review because he described the passionate kisses and the extra 10 minutes that I gave him, which was not part of my standard service. That worried me too, I had clicked with this particular client but I didnt want everyone making appointments expecting the same type of service. I realised though, that i was lucky. It could have gone the other way. If he happened to rub me the wrong way, his service might have felt forced and rushed and I could have just as easily gotten a bad review. I thought about the workers who had received bad reviews and felt bad for them. It could happen to any of us, and if a good review has the power to triple my confidence i didnt want to know how it felt to be criticised and insulted in this space.

Sometimes I would read a review that frustrated me. I couldnt believe how indiscreet some clients could be. I would be blinking my eyes with disbelief while i read in detail, how a particular worker at a massage only establishment had offered sex, even though it was against the rules of the business. Or how another worker had offered oral without a condom for extra money even though that was not allowed at the brothel she worked at. These careless clients were so busy gloating about the extra services they got, they didnt seem to understand the potential ramifications for the workers. Apart from having to deal with every man and his dog showing up expecting the same type of extra service described, one of these “good” reviews could result in the worker loosing her job or being ostracised by the other workers.

After that second review, i started getting enquiries from people who made mention of the forum and my reviews. I felt popular and was thankful for the extra business. But every time a forum punter made a booking i felt anxious. Will this be my next reviewer? I began feeling like they were all writing their reviews in their head during the service. Im trying to be sexy as I strip my clothes off and they are judging my body and face, Im rubbing my naked body against them and they are busy scoring my massage, Im trying to be sensual while i go down on them and they are rating my blow job. I was imagining them all scoring each aspect of my looks and service out of 10. It made me self conscious and put me off. Ironically, if i thought they were a potential review writer, their service would suffer.

I still managed to get a couple more good reviews and for a while it seemed like i was the flavour of the month. I was the one to see. But it didnt last. Before long all the forum punter started looking for the next hot tip. The 5 or 6 regular reviewers had seen and written about me already and now all their posts were asking about new recommendations or talking about who new is good and where. And i was old news. Which is fine. I mean at first I was frustrated because I had been reviewed so well, I had done nothing wrong but they still seemed intent on moving on. But I didnt let it get to me, my business wasnt suffering, sure there had been a slight spike during the height of my forum sweetheart days, but it was still steady, no quieter than it had been before the positive reviews. I realised these forum punters were a bonus to my business and not our bread and butter.

A while later I came into contact with a worker who was fairly new to the industry and was incredibly concerned with what they were saying about her online. She, like me, had been the flavour of the month but her stint ended abruptly when she got a nasty scathing review. It really knocked her confidence. I begged her to stop reading, but she couldnt stop worrying about it, trying to figure out how to get back on the good side of the online forum punters. She was beating herself up trying to guess where she went wrong, what she didnt do right, or who was behind the bad review. It really got to her. In her desperation to please them all, she gave them all her power. She began thinking of herself as a failure which affected her business and the whole thing spiraled out of control.

I stopped visiting the forums and searching for my name among the reviews and I became less invested in the punters community. After reading about the situation for sex workers in Hong Kong and just how toxic these review sites can get, I decided they are not healthy for sex workers, and I made a point to avoid them.

I know for some sex workers, avoiding ‘client community’ and review websites is not always possible.  Im sure that for some workers, like those in Hong Kong mentioned in the article above, engaging in these forums is an essential part of their business plan. But for many more of us, its just not necessary. Most of the time, we dont need to hear it. Its not fair or balanced. we have no right of reply, and we dont even know who is behind those screen names! Sometimes its not even a genuine client. It could be our competition, a vengeful ex, or anyone with a grudge. It could be the online equivalent of those douchebags that get their kicks by visiting brothels for intros, just so they can reject all the workers there. We need to remind ourselves that most of our clients arent reading those forums. If we have repeat business, and we are happy with the service we provide its probably best to stay away.

And with that in mind, I invite our clients to consider how they use such forums. I completely understand why you would want to read reviews about a worker before you spent a large amount of money. I do the same with accommodation, with movies, with holidays and restaurants. And i guess i understand why you might want to write a review about your experience good or bad. I have wanted to share my inside knowledge about particular hotels  with other travelers, however, lets be clear, giving my breasts a score out of 10 is not providing inside knowledge. Its also not helpful because its subjective and your taste in breasts is not relevant. I understand that some people might write a review in order to warn others about their dissatisfaction with a service they received. But in the same way as you would if you were sent the wrong meal or over charged in a restaurant, you should give the worker the chance to resolve their mistake before you rush home to tell your murky mates. If you havent given them this option, perhaps dont vilify them online. Tastes and expectations of sex workers vary so much they may not even realise you were not happy.

Given there is probably limited opportunity for clients to share stories about their experiences with sex workers, I guess some people write reviews as an opportunity to debrief or vent. If thats the case why do you have to name the worker, list their contact details,  link to their website etc. And why is there such a tight community of outspoken regular posters on these forums? I cant imagine being as emotionally invested in tripadvisor.com as some of these posters are. Be careful that your online punter gang isnt being used to bully workers or to share information in order to prey on vulnerable workers … “I know she has been desperate to make money lately, if you threaten to walk i bet you could knock $50 off her price” (actual quote i saw not that long ago on a popular punter forum)

Just keep in mind when you are reading or writing reviews in these forums, they have the potential to not just effect our business but they can also seriously effect our self esteem.

And for those of us on the other end of the reviews, remember there is nothing to gain from hearing the boys club compare notes trying to outdo each other. It has been my (limited) experience that we are much better off focusing on the people who are paying us RIGHT NOW.

 

The Madame of the house

Tags

brothels, clients, decriminalisation, feminism, law reform, laws, madames, Melbourne, money, personal stories, pimps, Relationships, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss, Victoria, worker rights

This is a story about the time I jumped the desk to become the Madame of the house. Its about running a business in the South Australian sex industry, about who has control over who and about the myth of easy money. I wrote this for the feminists who believe our industry is dominated by male bosses that make big bucks by controlling female workers. I wrote it for every 5^th client I see who has multiplied the money he spends on sex by the hours in a day and the number of rooms in a house and thinks he has hit jackpot. I wrote it for the politicians who worry about organised crime taking over the sex industry. For the wanna be bikies n thugs that fancy playing boss man to some ladies of the night, for the desperado that thinks owning the business will control the girl and for the saviours that honestly believe they would treat their ‘girls’ differently to how we are treated anywhere else. And I wrote it for the sex workers that don’t like their boss, or are sick of having a boss, or think they could do it better, or just feel like trying something different.

This story is from many years ago, sometime after my second brush with law and before my forced break from the sex industry. I was between jobs when a friend of a friend introduced me to Neil who apparently had an interesting proposition for me. I had heard about Neil the wanna be pimp before. I use the word pimp flippantly, I’m not sure Australia has pimps, but if we do, Neil would probably LIKE to be one. He definitely had the sleaze factor to fit the stereotype but lacked the backbone. Neil had a reputation in the industry as a slimy sucker, with more money than sense and a boner for big talking. Needless to say I was curious about his proposal, but wasn’t surprised when he told me he was having another go at opening a brothel. I say another go because, as legend had it, he had tried to open a number of brothels in the past and had failed.

One of the difficulties Neil had always encountered was that he was a man. There is not much of a role for a man in a South Australian brothel, other than client. A lot of female sex workers aren’t that keen on having men hanging around on premises and the cops generally aren’t that thrilled with it either. So Neil had decided he needed to pay a female manager. In addition to that, clients are generally put off if their phone calls or door bells are answered by a man, so Neil would also need to employ a female receptionist. It struck me as ironic that in order to brag about being a big brothel boss, he had to remove himself from any actual brothel bossing. He was forced to downplay his involvement in the brothel, hand over control of the brothel, stay away from the brothel, and give up a decent amount of profit from the brothel, in order for him own a brothel.

But Neil must have been impressing someone with his brothel bragging because he was determined to try his hand at the game again. When he met me, he already had the lease on a town house in the city and had furnished it simply and adequately. He knew a few workers from other brothels who were ready to jump ship and take advantage of the new businesses honeymoon period, one of which was the friend that had introduced him to me. At the time I was in a relationship with one of those partners that made it difficult for me to do sex work, and I had been missing the industry. So when Neil asked me to manage his new business, I was excited about the opportunity to be involved in the industry in a role that I hoped my partner would find more palatable. I accepted the offer immediately.

From the beginning Neil and I disagreed about everything right down to the goofy name he had given the business. I fought for what I considered to be fair pay for all the workers of the business, I pushed for flexible conditions and I advocated for an increased budget for advertising. But Neil was stubborn or stupid and wouldn’t give. He had a bottom line that wouldn’t budge. So for those first few weeks, we did it his way. But it didn’t take long before Neil was again learning that the sex industry is not easy money and opening a brothel is not a get rich quick scheme.

Business was up and down and Neil was becoming anxious. After paying the manager a cut, the receptionist her wage, the rent, the overpriced advertising, the utilities and essential supplies for the business, Neil quickly discovered 50% of a coupla jobs a day doesn’t go far. He responded to his anxiety by reducing the advertising budget further, cutting receptionist wages and introducing ‘shift fees’ for the workers.

But it’s a vicious cycle. Without enough advertising, business became even quieter and without clients bringing in the money, the workers became unhappy. When Neil introduced the shift fee, the workers felt disrespected. Who would be happy about coming to work, sitting around all day for minimal pay with the risk being caught up in a raid AND then being forced to pay an illegal shift fee!??! They began to resent working there and those that stayed were unreliable.

Anyone who fantasises about making easy money off the backs of hookers is going to struggle. Hookers are not that easy. Many of us chose sex work for the flexibility it offers us, so we expect a flexible work place. Many of us chose it for the money we can make, so we expect to make money. Many of us chose sex work because we are good at it, so we expect to be appreciated by our employers. Neil offered his workers none of that.

But an empowered hooker is a powerful force. A hooker that knows there are ten other businesses in the vicinity that need staff (and there usually is) will not settle for anything less than what she expects. A hooker that knows its OUR service that makes the money will expect respect. And if that hooker works for a boss that disrespects her, she will disrespect them right back.

None of Neil’s workers respected him, and the business suffered because of it. One typically quiet Saturday I caught out the receptionist and worker on shift doing something dodgy. I knew they had done two jobs, but the bookwork indicated only one. They had decided to not record the second job, splitting the business’s 50% cut between them. I couldn’t blame them. They were making next to nothing and Neil’s decisions were only making it worse.

I was frustrated. I knew Neil was not meeting his target, or even covering costs, but less advertising and unhappy, unreliable and resentful workers was not helping to bring in the clients or the cash. And the expenses were still mounting.

That’s when I decided to go around him and do what needed to be done. I started taking the money from one job a day off the books and used the money to pay for more advertising. I also introduced a small retainer for the staff to cover lunch and maybe a cabfare, on those occasions when they didn’t do any jobs. And when no workers showed up to shift, I did the jobs.

At the same time Neil seemed to have an epiphany. If he wanted money he needed clients, if he wanted clients he needed workers, and if he wanted to keep the workers, he would have to loosen his rules. Since he couldn’t work himself, he was on his knees. He had no choice but to give the workers the flexibility and work conditions they were demanding. Its not unusual for sex industry employers to take advantage of the criminalised setting by attempting to control us like they would an employee but only giving us the pay and conditions of a contract worker. But in a situation where there was little money to be made, not many would accept a bad boss.

So Neil began to back off and let me take a bigger role in managing the rosters and staffing. Sneaking around behind Neils back doing jobs myself and advertising more, started to pay off and I managed to keep the business afloat a little longer. The staff appreciated the token retainer and the more flexible conditions and when I abolished the shift fee that Neil had introduced the mood shifted.

The flexible, fair and friendly work environment resulted in word of mouth reaching the workers of a brothel that had been closed down recently. It was early one quiet weekend when Winnie, an unremarkable woman in her mid 30’s came in for an interview. Looking like a proper house wife dressed in ladies floral and a perfect perm, Winnie was an unlikely looking hooker, but she bought a huge loyal and very regular client base with her. And the good fortune Winnie bought us did not stop there. She immediately sent for her two friends who she had worked with at the previous brothel. They were impressed by the guaranteed retainer our business offered and were keen to start work straight away. So at that moment, our luck had changed and business looked up. Winnie had swept in with a hoard of clients and a couple of fresh faced workers under wing and saved the day, and the business.

And so it was, that due to the decision to treat our workers well, my ability to perform ALL the duties necessary, and a little bit of good luck, business began to boom. And Neil didn’t know the half of it. His pressure was gone and he was making enough to cover his costs as well as a reasonable profit for doing nothing. He could finaly hold his head up high while he bragged round town about his latest business venture. I kept lying to him about how many jobs we were doing so I could use the extra money to continue paying the staff well, stock the business with nice things, pay for adequate advertising and offcourse I gave myself a bonus.

Everyone was happy, business was flourishing under my management, the workers were all content and making money and even Neil was satisfied. Everyone was happy except my partner. The generous pay packet I was bringing home did not sweeten the deal for them. Running any business is hard work, and clearly a sex industry business is no exception. I was on call 24/7, I was stressed about the threat of police, and I was doing lots of unrostered work relieving staff when needed. Stopping sex work and taking up this new role as manager was meant to appease my partner who was uncomfortable about sex work, but instead I had succeeded in making the sex industry a bigger part of my life than it had ever been before. My partner didn’t know about the occasions when Id provided the service myself in order to keep the doors open, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t want me involved in the industry at all.

My job was beginning to cause problems for my relationship which was probably a good thing. Looking back on this time of my life I’m glad my controlling and jealous partner made my life hell to the point I ended up walking away from the business all together. Because I nearly did something that coulda been mighta not ended well.

Neil was a shmuck. Worse than a shmuck. He was a sleazy roadblock to our success and he made me cringe. I was sick of answering to him, lying to him, even seeing him. Basically, I was sick of having him on the pay role. He was the ‘owner’ of the business, sure, but what exactly did he own? The workers? No, certainly not, most of them at this point had never even met him, and would never work for him under the conditions he wanted me to apply. Did he own the clientele? Definitely not, some clients will perhaps follow a worker from location to location, but generally clients go everywhere and belong to noone. And the clients we got came from the advertising I DID, and it was the happy skilled workers that kept them coming back. Did he own the business name? well, sure, he owned a ridiculous goofy name he chose, but that wasn’t the name that I used in our advertising, or the name that the clients had come to know, or the name that the staff and I used. The name we used, was the name I chose. Did he own premises? Well sure, he had the lease on the townhouse we operated from, but, after being there for 8 months and with a steady stream of business coming and going, it would be time to move on soon before we attracted police attention anyways. So what did he own? Some of the furniture was his, but I had also bought a lot of newer pieces for the business since we opened. And he owned the phone number.

The workers and I began talking about ditching Neil and taking complete control of his business by simply shifting the location to a new premises that was in my name. We even joked about diverting business phone to our newly connected number until Neil noticed and got round to disconnecting it.

A sex industry business, in an illegal setting, is nothing. In an environment where businesses have to move regularly, operate discreetly out of residential properties or under the masquerade of health clinics or massage parlours, a reputation or a name, an address or even a permanent phone number is not something any brothel in South Australia has. Places and faces pop up and get shut down all over town all the time, and while certain individuals may have a reputation in the industry, finding a brothel you like, is largely a case of trial and error for both sex workers and clients. So when people talk about buying a business in our industry, I always wonder what they think they are buying, and when I thought about leaving Neil and setting up shop elsewhere, I didn’t feel guilty.

I started looking for a new place to operate from and found a perfect house. It was fully furnished, in a central location and it oozed executive luxury, which was a long way from the plain and simple townhouse Neil had rented. The landlord approved my application and I was excited, nervous and determined to break away from Neil. But the night before I was due to sign the lease, my partner gave me an ultimatum. My relationship or the sex industry.

To be honest, I didn’t think too long about it. I was so sick of fighting about this, and the stress at home combined with the stress of running a business was getting too much. I allowed my partner to believe that our relationship won and the sex industry lost the competition for my loyalty. In reality, I knew I wasn’t leaving the sex industry, just leaving this role in the industry.

I suddenly realised that while there was some satisfaction and profit in successfully running my own business, it was also hard work, with big legal and financial risks. I reminisced about how easy life was when I just had to suck cocks and count cash. That night spurred on by my partner’s ultimatum, I did a 180. The next day I left the business, its workers and Neil to fend for themselves. And the next week I left my partner and went back to fending for myself.

Soon after I heard that Neil’s business had been visited by police and had been closed down. I felt a mixture of regret and relief about what was and what could have been.

Now when I reflect on the business owners and employers I have known in our industry I notice that those that have survived in the industry the longest are current or ex workers themselves, and I think that’s due to the fact that they willing and able to jump back over the desk and into the bed, in order to keep the doors open when business is tough.

The South Australian sex industry is also made up of lots of collectives of workers and private and independent workers. Having these choices easily available to us is an important aspect in ensuring we have the power to negotiate pay and conditions that suit us.

However, the fear of the police and the law does mean many workers are reluctant to work for themselves, as part of a collective or open their own business. Criminalisation does mean that many workers will not be willing to risk taking out a lease on a property in their own name and instead will opt for working anonymously for a boss. We NEED law reform urgently in this state, but any new laws we consider must support our choice to work in a variety of ways. We do not want laws like those in Victoria that favour big business and make it impossible for the average worker to try out other roles in the industry, or to work for themselves, or that stops a group of sex workers from working together. Any new laws must not take away the power we DO have. That’s one of the reasons I advocate for decriminalisation. It is the only model of law reform that protects and empowers sex workers allowing us to work for ourself, in collectives, or even to open our own small business. It’s the only model that supports our cottage industry here in SA.

But until we get decriminalisation I will continue to giggle and enjoy the stories I hear about bosses who attempt to rip off workers but end up getting ripped off themselves. Because its true that the most successful businesses are those where the workers are happy and respected.

Show me yours and I’ll show you mine…

Tags

bodies, body image, brothels, clients, disability, self esteem, sex industry, Sex Work, sexuality

I wanted to write something about the human body in all its naked and diverse glory. I wanted to share the unexpected gift that sex work gave me; forgiveness for all my physical imperfections.

Working as a sex worker for many years I have seen naked bodies belonging to my clients, my co workers and myself in all sorts of positions, settings and lighting. Over the years I have become incredibly comfortable with human bodies and getting naked but that wasn’t always the case.

Taking my clothes off and showing my naked body to someone I just met, AND  having the nerve to expect them to pay me for it, was my first and most persistent fear about starting sex work. Before sex work my experience of being naked in front of people had largely been in the dark, after foreplay and with lots of anxiety. Each time i let my mind wander  what it would be like to do sex work, I would get stuck at the bit where I had to take off my clothes.

And it wasn’t just a concern for the first booking, every time I went back to sex work after having a break I would confront the same insecurities. None more pronounced than when I returned after having carried a 9 pound baby full term. I was paranoid about my changed body shape, my new stress lines, decreased sexual confidence, stretched skin, my more mature attitude, everything.

There were times when I tried to hide the bits that worried me. Id leave my skirt on to hide my mummy tummy, id leave shoes on to hide my feet, id wear wigs to change my hair, stockings to cover cellulite, id leave the lights low, id do a combination of all of the above. And other times I adopted a ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude and strut my stuff as if I had not a care in the world.

Each time I got naked and got paid it got easier. To the point I barely think about it anymore. Yeah sometimes I notice clients looking at my stretch marks as they ask how many kids i have. But I have just as many clients who admire my legs or my bum or even my uneven boobs.

The raw commercial reality of selling sex and desire makes it increasingly obvious that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. That phrase gets new depth and credibility when you see its sentiment play out again and again in the intro rooms every night. Sex work taught me that for every body there is someone who thinks its sexy enough to pay for it. Even more than that, its possible to work your insecurity and turn it into your money maker. Your big ass or hairy legs could be the just the thing this client is into.

And its not just my body that I have become comfortable with, but ANY body.

Through my work I have seen bodies of all shapes and sizes with all sorts of bodily functions and dysfunctions. I’ve noticed and critiqued the changes that  occur  to my own body in the  quick glimpses of myself that I catch in the strategically placed mirrors as I massage and make small talk. Ive cleaned up all sorts of messes that  were made by various bodies. Ive learnt when to be gentle and work sensitively with my own and other peoples insecurities and body image issues. I’ve ignored, discussed, nurtured and pleasured every type of physical and sexual hang-up you can imagine.

Sometimes clients try to hide what they think is their abnormality for fear of rejection, humiliation or judgement, and some will be completely upfront in an attempt to avoid experiencing judgement or rejection at a later stage. Either way don’t let it effect your self esteem. Sex workers can decide who they will and wont see as a client for any reason they want. For example some sex workers wont see a client from the same cultural background as them (for confidentiality), some may decline because they suspect those skin tags are actually warts or due to the clients disabilities. Some sex workers may even have a preference for age or any other kind of physical appearance. That’s completely up to them. But there are just as many sex workers who will not see young men, or football players, or clients with lots of muscles, for just as many reasons. And the majority of us only care that our clients are hygienic, respectful and prepared to pay our price.

Ive seen so many different genitals and tummys and feet and chests and bottoms and backs and bodily and sexual function and dysfunction and attitudes and egos and insecurities, penis sizes and shapes, circumcised willys, loose foreskins, foreskins so tight its joined at the top,  pearls and rubies inserted underneath forskins, hard cocks, soft cocks, cocks that go up and down, wet orgasms, dry orgasms, lots of cum, barely any cum, cum that squirts in all directions, warts, skin tags, herpes, sunburn, blotchy skin, shaved skin, hairy bodies, lost hair, big ones, small ones, ultra sensitive and over stimulated, cock rings, female condoms, eczema, swollen pumped up penises, catheters, cum before their pants are off, requires specific actions to make cum, stretched skin, stretch marks, burned skin, bruised, scars, tattoos, dry rough and scaly, super soft and silky, one testicul higher than the other, one ball gone, hanging low or high and tight balls, good kissers, bad kissers, pacemakers, gastro tubes, old, young, all teeth, false teeth, some missing. business suits, surfers clothes, tradie blues, golfing gear, trackies and tshirt, work uniform, jeans and polo, poking out nipples, inverted nipples, guts and man boobs, tupe’s, home d bracelets, medical alert bracelets, piercings, hairy back, muscles, skinny, ugly feet, warts, freckles, missing limbs, differing abilities for fitness and positions, germaphobes, people from many cultures with many religions, scars and birthmarks, noisy bodies, weird sounds, injuries, sores, wounds, sex aids, medications, and I’ve seen all these things across all genders n ages n abilities.

I am always reminded that we are all human. We are all vulnerable. Whether we are being paid to use our bodies to sexually arouse others or if we are paying for our body to be aroused. We all bleed and excrete and have lumps and bumps. And we all have insecurities. Too many of us are too worried about our average and regular bodies. We are are own worst critics.

Dear SA, can we have the bill?

Tags

decriminalisation, discrimination, law reform, laws, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia

There is a new bill before parliament which seeks to decriminalise sex work in South Australia. The ‘Statutes Ammendment (Decriminlisation of Sex Work) Bill 2013’ was introduced to the House of Representaives by Steph Key on the 16th of May 2013 and unlike the previous bill, I am thrilled with this one.

This bill is pure decriminalisation with the exception of the clause that states sex workers and clients must be over 18 and the addition of ammendments to the anti discrimination act and spent conviction act which will make it illegal to discriminate against a sex worker and mean existing sex work convictions would be wiped from our records.

Decriminalisation basically it means that all the offences related to sex work will be deleted and no new special laws will be added, allowing sex workers, sex work businesses and the industry to be governed by all the laws and regulations that govern every other citizen, worker, business and industry. Under a decriminalised model police would be there to protect us, not bust us and we would be able to access all the protections that other workers can access. Creating special laws just for sex workers means we are often discriminated against, treated differently, still have the police trying to catch us out doing something illegal, have OH&S and industrial regulations contained in criminal codes with criminal punishments as opposed to being dealt with industrially like other workers and industries. Decriminaisation ensures that sex workers are not subject to special laws that were often made for political not pragmatic reasons and then shelved for another hundred years, rather decrimnalisation means sex workers are covered by the same sophisticated protections and reguations as other workers which are reviewed and updated regularly (such as industrial relations and OH&S regulations).

This bill will mean that no sex worker is a criminal. It means that all sex workers should be able to call police without fear. It means that potential offenders think twice before committing crimes against sex workers. It means sex workers have access to oh&S standards. It means sex workers are less isolated and have less barriers to accessig assistance when they need it. It means sex workers can put safe work practices before police evasion tactics. It means sex industry business can be more open about their business activities and provide more specific tools and resources to assist sex workers and clients stay safe. It means sex workers can be clearer with potential clients and employers about their boundaries. It means sex workers who have criminal records will no longer need to worry that this will effect them in finding work outside the industry. It means sex workers do not have to worry about getting a criminal record or having negative contact with police. It means that instead of sex workers breaking the law, it will be the people who discriminate against us who are breaking the law which is a massive shift and i can only imagine the long term impacts of this on the self esteem of sex workers.

Decriminalisation is best for everyone. There are some brothel owners and employers who would have preffered there to be tighter controls on sex workers and businesses so as to limit competition and to maximise the power they can have over workers, but ultimately the day to day work lives will not change for people in the sex industry (or outside it) except where we need assistance we will have places to get it. Decriminalisation is not a magic wand and will not solve all our problems, but it levels the playing feild. It gives us somewhere to start. It gives us the right to fight for our rights. Decriminalisation is what sex workers around the world have been demanding for decades.

New South Wales and New Zealand have already decriminalised sex work and have reported successes for sex workers health and safety, and maybe South Australia will be the third place in the world to give sex workers equal rights. The current bill will be voted on following its second reading on the 20th of June. If the vote is successful the bill will go to committee stage, where ammendments can be put forward before it gets voted on a second time. If passed by the lower house, the bill then needs to be passed (by a similar process) in the upper house.

This is a really big deal. Maybe sex workers in South Australia will finally be able to work with dignity choice and legal protection, maybe our laws will be featured in power point presentations in conferences everywhere, maybe all the work of South Australian sex worker activists past and present will have positive outcomes for sex workers here and internationally.

But now we need your help. South Australia was once considered a world leader in progressive law reform, but this is no longer the case. Our leaders are scared of controversy, they are scared that you wont vote for them if they support these laws. If we are going to get this bill past, we need you to tell your local MP that you support us, and you support decriminalisation and you want them to support this bill.

Please consider supporting us by:

Signing the petition

Writing to your local MP

Meeting with your local MP

Attending the rallys

Writing letters to the editor and commenting on onine media

Getting in touch with SIN or SWAGGERR to find out how you can help

Liking the facebook pages to keep informed, including the new one ‘decriminalise sex work in south australia’

This is not just an issue for sex workers past and present and in the future and our friends and family, it is an issue for all South Australians who care about equity and social justice. Please get behind us, We cant do this alone!

Dear South Australian MPs and sex worker allies

Tags

brothels, clients, consent, councils, decriminalisation, discrimination, feminism, law reform, laws, licensing, mandatory testing, Melbourne, nursing homes, personal stories, Queensland, rants, regulation, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, street workers, the boss

Dear Ms. Key, Ms. Gago, members of the South Australian parliament, people with influence and anyone following the latest attempt at sex industry law reform in this once progressive but now somewhat stale state.

Please stop it! You’re making it worse!

You may think you’re doing the right thing but The bill you’re debating has been cut and paste so much in order to appease and play politics that what remains is not workable or fair and will not improve the lives of sex workers or anyone else. It’s not a game of bluff, nor is it a matter of compromise. The bill you are considering is a big step backward.

This is ridiculous. Why are politicians sitting around and deciding how sex workers should best practice safe sex. Why should they be able to criminalise some consensual sex acts between adults just because there is payment involved? Why do they get a say on how adults are allowed to negotiate sex and money. And why do we need to be kept 500 meters away from schools? Is it me who is the danger to children and does that include my own children? Or is it my client who is the dangerous monster? What is it about paying an adult for a sexual service that you think has anything to do with kids at school? What exactly are you scared of? And we’re not talking about inappropriate signage or amenities, because that is covered by different laws. And frankly, sex workers and our clients are generally discreet. You don’t even know that I’m selling sex from my home right next door to yours! And why is no sex work allowed near churches? Who is that clause designed to protect anyway? And why bother even worrying about schools and churches when the bill gives all the power for approving any kind of sex industry business to the councils, who have made it clear that they will never support brothels! So even if I tried to comply with this new law and secured a suitable location and put in a planning application, it’s going to be rejected on moral grounds and I will be back to square one. In reality councils will have about as much luck of stopping sex work from occurring as they do now. And just like now, most will be sex industry businesses will be forced to remain unregulated and underground.

And why is it anyone else’s business who I entertain in my own home or how they compensate me? Can you see through walls? And what’s the deal with all the hate on sex workers who solicit in public places? What exactly is so offensive about a woman standing on the street at night time anyway? And I don’t believe that she is propositioning your children, because it’s unlikely your children could afford it. Personally I feel more uncomfortable walking past a building site in the broad daylight than I do going to the pizza shop on Hanson Road.

And why should we have to deal with police on regular basis. I have had a lot of different jobs in my time, and never did the police come and check to see if I was bending at the knees when lifting nursing home residents, or displaying a slippery when wet sign when I mopped the floors of woollies. Why are we still being treated like this? Sex workers are not criminals. Stop making us into them. In some states of Australia it is illegal to discriminate against sex workers but the bill you are debating is discriminatory. It treats sex workers differently to other workers in comparable industries and it discriminates against different ways working in the sex industry. But even less forgivably, it will make our lives harder, not better.

Yes it’s true that most sex work in South Australia is currently criminalised. And that most of us already dodge laws, deal with police, and work underground. It is true that our laws are the oldest in the country. But please don’t change them just for the sake of it. Do not change them unless you are changing them for the better. Sex workers know what we need, its decriminalisation. Every credible report from the last 10 years names decriminalisation as the only model that will promote sex workers health and safety. Every state and Territory in Australia has a different model of regulation for the sex industry and if you need any more proof that the only workable model we know of to date is decriminalisation, all you have to do is speak to sex workers about our experiences of working across Australia. NSW and NZ have successfully decriminalised sex work for more than a decade. In those places sex workers are not criminals. We have full access to all the services and structures, protections and rights that every other worker does, and employers have the same obligations as any other employer. Sex workers all over the world are begging for decriminalisation. Its not rocket science.

In stark contrast Victoria and Queensland have different versions of licensing mixed with criminal laws that govern various aspects of the industry. Special bodies have been set up to monitor the laws and the police are still heavily involved in regulating sex workers work spaces. Not only have those laws been ineffective but they have also been expensive and dangerous.

When I went to Victoria to work I had very little option but to work in a brothel for a boss under their rules. I wasn’t able to work for myself because the only way I could advertise was to first register myself as a prostitute with the government. This process is expensive and it is unclear who has access to those licensing records or if it is possible to get your name removed from the list. Even if I was willing to buy a licence and register, I would still not have been allowed to have the clients visit me in my hotel or home. The law states that I was only allowed to visit them at their home or hotel. So I worked for a brothel. But before I was allowed to work, I was first forced to have a full medical examination, as is the law. The nurse visited me at the brothel and took swabs while I lay in an undignified way on the brothel bed. The nurse insisted I needed an anal swab too, even though I objected and told her that I did not provide anal services to my clients. But unlike when my clients ask for this service, this nurse was not going to take no for an answer and she unconsentually and unnecessarily stuck her swab in my ass.

If I didn’t want to work for a boss in brothel conditions and I wasn’t in a position to register myself with the local authorities, my only option was to solicit publicly. Street based sex work is illegal in Victoria, but obviously still exists and in larger proportions than here in Adelaide. Victorian police have taken to dealing with this by placing female police officers posing as sex workers on the streets in order to bust potential clients. What criminalising our client’s means is that sex workers are pushed further underground in order to ensure their clients safety and the booking. It means the possibility that only the clients with nothing to loose will be willing to take the risk of visiting sex workers who publicly solicit. Essentially it decreases the amount of “respectable” clients willing to see street based sex workers and leaves us more vulnerable and fewer options.

Another huge slap in the face was working recently in  QLD. I worked alone from a hotel which is legal as long I work completely alone. Not even with a friend. This is obviously not ideal, but it’s workable. Until I found out that I also can’t work in same hotel as any other sex worker. I can’t do doubles with another worker unless the client organises it. Infact I cant even have any friends who are sex workers. I was told to be careful even having lunch with another worker whilst answering my work phone. It felt crazy. I got the distinct feeling that I was viewed as a piece of property by QLD government. As a sex worker in QLD I must belong to one of the only 25 government approved registered brothels in the state or I must completely exile myself from the rest of the industry. I must rely only on my clients or my employer for support. And on top of all this, they have entire sections of the police force dedicated to ringing up private workers and trying to convince them to offer a double service or a blow job without a condom, so that they can bust them. All in the name of protecting sex workers.

And then I come home to Adelaide where the old and unworkable laws are……. well, old and unworkable. I can advertise and work for myself in ways that I choose with minimal difficulty. I can work with friends as a collective, I can work from home, I can work for a boss or opportunistically. Its all equally illegal, and easy to remain anonymous, unless I’m a victim of crime and need police assistance, or unless I’m working in a brothel that police have singled out for a raid, or unless I don’t know my rights, or unless I haven’t yet learnt the police evasion strategies. Our current laws are bad, but the new laws being proposed will only make our lives harder. They won’t work and rather than address community concerns they will highlight them. The issue of sex work regulation will not be resolved until we get sensible fair and workable law reform.

We already have sophisticated systems to deal with all areas of work, industry, OH&S, public health, zoning, amenities, child protection, industrial rights and any other areas of concern. Stop with the politics and just let us access them already.

Easy cum, easy go..

Tags

laws, money, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, stigma

Money! Money! Money!

Thousands of words in this blog and not enough about money! Too much research into sexual health in the industry and not enough about the economics. Sex work is work, like all work we choose it for many reasons, but like all work, a big factor in those reasons is often our personal financial considerations. For me the primary reason I choose sex work over other work options is the autonomy it offers me. I can work for myself with little overheads.. so I do. I would still choose sex work even if it paid the same or slightly less than other work options. But if it were to pay considerably less, sex work would no longer become an attractive option to me. Like in any industry, obviously, money comes into it.

Due to sex work being so incredibly stigmatised and not to mention criminalised, it’s likely that I may never have entered the industry if it weren’t for economic reasons, I needed the money. I choose to keep coming back for so many more reasons but to begin with, it was almost purely economics.

Yet all the surveys being distributed from naive and voyeuristic psychology students asking about our daddy issues and drug use histories trying to figure out how someone could consider selling sex, rarely ever ask about my economic situation, or my spending habits, my savings and investments. I’m not talking about questions like ‘how much money do you spend on drugs?’ ‘was your mother on welfare?’ or ‘hookers should pay tax’, I mean, meaningful enquiry into the economic situation of sex workers before, during and after working in the sex industry and the barriers for sex workers becoming financially secure etc.

Sex work is not a gold mine, most of us are not making more than we can spend, but a lot of us are making enough and not enough of us have as much as we could. I’m not saying we should all aspire to have 3 properties and an investment portfolio, or that some of us don’t already, or whether acquiring wealth is even a worthy goal to have, and I dont want to imply that I think there is any particular ‘good’ way to use our money. This post is more about representation. I am suggesting based on my own limited experiences that, compared to people on similar incomes in other indsutries, there arent enough rich hookers.

And I wonder how much stigma and discrimination has to do with it. Do sex workers’ financial situations in decriminalised Sydney more accurately represent their income than sex workers in criminalised South Australia. Or for an even starker contrast, what would a comparison of sex workers financial situations and the level of stigma and criminalisation that they live with globally look like.

I’ve never been good with money, but then I never had money before I was a hooker, so who knows which came first. My parents weren’t good with money either, probably has more relevance to my career choices than the fact that my father didn’t love me enough. Not as interesting to psychology students though.

I think sex work has given me less respect for money, the money I earn in sex work doesn’t always equate to the effort I put in. I could get paid $700 for a two hour booking and then go home straight after it, or I could sit around all day answering the phone for 12 hours and only do one half hour job for $150. Sometimes its easy come easy go. You can’t plan for it, so it’s easier to spend. Common phrases that run through my mind are ‘oh, well I might not have done that last job, I didn’t know i was going to get that booking, so it doesn’t really matter if i spend that money on… (insert vice of choice)’ or ‘ohh, i can just work an extra day and make that money back, no worries’. It sure does make it easier for money to slip through my fingers, but it must be similar to any independent contract worker in any industry.

Being paid daily and even hourly doesn’t help either. Dribs and drabs of money is much easier to be irresponsible with than large sums once a week. I’m not complaining though, I love dribs and drabs of money. And in an industry where your boss’s business could be shut down by the cops any second, who would tolerate having their pay withheld for a week!

Perhaps I’m just too generous. Having come from not much money, a lot of my non hooker friends still don’t have  lots of money. I don’t know about you, but when im going out for dinner, I don’t want to go alone, so I might pay for my friends. If im doing well enough to be able to afford a holiday, I don’t want to go alone, so I might take my sister. Are other hookers as generous?

On the other hand there have been times when I led a double life, no one knew that I was a sex worker and so I almost had to be careful to not have too much money. There was never any  pressure or expectation for me to be ready for home ownership when I was meant to be making $15 an hour as a waitress.

And when I’m not telling anyone about my job or the income, who do I talk to for financial advice? It’s not like financial institutions are marketing their services to me. And working somewhere or somehow in a criminalised way, like many of us are it’s hard to know where to begin, who to trust, and whether its even worth it. Paying super seems a pretty far stretch for a lot of us.

Maybe there is an element of dirty money? I don’t think this plays into it for me at all. But maybe for some people, especially those new to the industry, there is an element of perceived risk taking or doing the wrong thing which impacts on the way people view the money they make from it? Like internalised stigma stuff. Or maybe not? I’m not sure.

For me there is an element of freedom that I get from sex work which impacts on the way I spend money. I feel like sex work allows me to live in the moment, and I spend accordingly. Live day to day, place to place, no savings but confident Ill have a roof over my head. Not to mention sex work makes me a rule breaker, I already live on the fringes. Avoiding authority, not much in my real name and I get paid and play with cash. Paying tax on my sex work money is a relatively new concept and I actually have no idea what an investment portfolio is.

It’s hard to build assets in a criminalised environment when you know that the cops could possibly seize everything you have as proceeds of crime, or even worse, here in SA you could be charged with illegal possession if the cops can prove you made your money from sex work.

Then it seems that there are some people out there who see us as easy targets as well. watching us making money, busy justifying the reasons they should take it from us. Sometimes they see it as easy money, sometimes its jealousy, sometimes they convince themselves that we owe it to them. And i bet some people are counting on the belief that lots of us are not in a position to do anything about it when they rip us off. We might be scared to go to the cops, we might not know who to tell, we might not have any proof that we had the money in the first place, we might be scared of blowing our cover.

I guess another consideration is that due to the stigma and criminalisation and the discrimination we face from others, sex work is not always seen as a career by many, sometimes it’s just something to do right now. There isn’t much incentive to plan ahead if its seen as a short term option.

I guess for some there is the belief that the bigger the risk of discrimination that you face in doing sex work, the better the rewards should be, but for myself I feel like the more out and proud of my work I become, the greater my expectation that I’ll have access to the same financial security as other employed/ independent workers on decent incomes. I feel entitled to my seat at the grown ups table, and I want this money to work for me…

Up ya bum!

I am always surprised when people ask me how many times I have been hit at work and they are always surprised when I answer NEVER.  In all my years sex working, there have been only been two times when my client scared me and neither of these times resulted in me being hurt.

It’s important to note that if I feel uneasy about a potential client for any reason I do not accept the booking. As sex workers we develop many screening techniques that work for us, the most reliable one being our gut instincts. I also want to acknowledge that while I have not experienced workplace violence or abuse at work in the sex industry, there are many sex workers who have. Indeed there are many workers in all industries who have, but for workers in the sex industry there is less support and limited options to deal with issues or incidents due to criminalisation and discrimination. In many cases the sex work laws are responsible for making sex workers more vulnerable at work. We should also remember that for women violence is more likely to be a part of our home life than our work life, no matter what job we do. So to ask me how many times I have been hit at work just because I am a sex worker is kind of ridiculous and inappropriate, not to mention unhelpful. Imagine asking every woman you meet how many times they have been hit by a partner or family member as part of normal conversation.

So generally I get frustrated with the question and the looks of disbelief that follow my answer, but if I’m feeling generous I will follow it up with an explanation and a story. Only two bookings where I felt scared and due to my well refined de-escalation skills neither of them resulted in me being hurt. Infact one of them is now part of my collection of funny hooker stories, do you want to hear it?

I was working in one of Adelaide’s small suburban brothels one evening when this client came in. He booked me for 2 hours straight up and we headed for the small 2 person outdoor spa in the private courtyard of the cottage we were working from. It didn’t take me long to notice this guy was wired. He was racing through emotions from aggressive to horny to nervous back to aggressive, the whole time very agitated. In the spa he told me what I already suspected; he been on a massive drink and drug bender and hadn’t slept for three days. He told me about a  big fight he had with his girlfriend and was clearly still very angry about it. He became more aggressive the more he talked about the fight. He re-enacted an argument using me as a prop for his girlfriend.

I was scared. I was confined in the spa with him inches from my face, yelling at me, fist clenched, veins popping, body pumped, mind scattered, pupils dilated.

“AND I TOLD HER TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TO ME YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH, FUCKING LISTEN TO ME”

He wasn’t calling me a stupid fucking bitch, he was telling me what he said to his girlfriend, but he sure was doing a convincing performance. In those moments a thousand things  flashed in my mind but I did my best to hold his focus and find a way to snap him back to the here and now. I was worried that in his overtired, delirious, hyped up, sketched out, coming down, pepped up, clenching tight, freaking out state of conscienceness he would blur the line and vision between me and his girlfriend and then I’d be in trouble.

I calmly and gently reminded him that there were people inside the house who will come out and check on us if they hear him yelling and swearing. He lowered his voice but kept going, every now and then getting louder and more aggressive as the story peaked. He was angry and he was strong and he was unpredictable. If I had been visiting him I would have found a reason to leave but I was in a brothel and there were other workers around who will intervene the minute I screamed so i kept going with the booking.

After a while he stopped talking about his girlfriend and seemed to settle into the service. We went inside to the bedroom past the other workers where I gave them a look which said… ‘hard work’ (as opposed to the ‘funny story’ or ‘extra money opportunity here’ or ‘bored as hell’ or ‘get me the fuck outa here’ looks). They give me a ‘poor you’ look in return and I keep walking.

Behind closed doors he was still agitated and still tense, still arrogant and still strong, but less angry. We had about an hour and 20 mins left and I planned on using the last 10 mins to shower, so really only about an hour left. I knew he wasn’t going to want me to massage him, and I knew he would have trouble performing after his bender but guys like this wont to let you do your thing. They want this and they want that, now do this and try that, none of which is going to give him an erection. But he’ll rub it till it’s raw or the hour is up. I’m twisting his nipples, sucking him off, playing with myself, playing with him, on repeat while he rubs and rubs, he is hot and dripping in sweat, condoms get thrown off and new ones put on while his dick goes hard and soft and i try hard not to show my boredom whilst avoiding falling drops of sweat.

Wanking his dick and talking about various women he has fucked and sex acts he’s proud of. Again not very interesting and some of it was pretty offensive. He told me him and his mates once picked up a woman from a club, took her somewhere nearby and fucked her during which she allowed them to stick a carrot in her ass. These three guys were fucking this woman in the ass with a carrot and then let it get stuck inside her, they couldn’t get it out. Everyone involved freaked out and the guys drove her to the closest hospital and dumped her out the front.. I was appalled and I didn’t hide it. I told him I thought it was disgusting that they would be so disrespectful as to just dump her at the hospital after they carelessly lost a fucking carrot in her ass. I disliked him even more.

But there was still 40 minutes to go so I went back to playing with my vibrator while he furiously yanked on his penis trying to make himself cum. It was after I faked the 3rd orgasm (all that moaning has got to lead to something eventually) when he told me he wanted me to fuck him with one of my toys. It’s not an unusual request, I would say at least half the guys I see like some kind ass teasing or anal play even if they don’t talk about it. I had plenty of ass- play experience with clients with my condom covered fingers, but not much with toys. There was 35 minutes left in the booking and I was keen to shake it up a bit and waste some precious time in this long tedious booking by getting up of the bed, finding the right  toy, putting a condom on it and getting lube organised.

I chose a smallish slim vibrator and put a condom over it. I underestimated him. I should have chosen a medium or even a large toy, he had obviously done this before. He was getting right into it and for the first time in the booking I felt the pressure mounting, now we were getting somewhere. He was still pulling on his penis, it was hard now. I knew, in the way a hooker knows that I needed to keep going at the same pace for just a bit longer to make him finally cum and then I can push him out the door. But the toy was too small and he was thrusting so far back on it that it his ass swallowed the vibrator while I clinged to the end of the condom that covered it. The whole vibrator was now inside him with only the condom hanging out and he was still thrusting. I gave the condom a yank trying to bring the vibrator back out where I could get a grip of it but the condom broke and the vibrator disappeared in further inside him.

My life flashed before my eyes. This aggressive sketched out tough guy on all fours in front of me and I lost a vibrator in his ass!!

I didn’t say anything, I shoved my fingers inside him and felt the tip of the toy. I told him to push so I could grab it and instead he tensed up and I felt it move away from my fingers. He started freaking, I told him to relax and push, it’s going to be fine I promised, I’ve got it I lied. But I had no idea what has going to happen, I was shitscared.

Like a pro, he instantly fell into foetal position, pulled his ass cheeks apart and pushed. I saw the end of the toy crowning (haha), I grabbed it and pulled it out. I told you he had done this before! The relief flooded through me, crisis averted. He was kinda pissed off at me, not only had I killed the potential orgasm, but I had irresponsibly lost my toy in his bum.

With the danger gone, his bottom in tact and only 15 minutes of the booking left I felt pretty safe and smug in assuring him that if I had lost the vibrator in his ass I would happily arrange for someone to drop him out the front of the local hospital.

Even now the memory of the arrogant, aggressive, tough guy falling into foetal and pulling his ass cheeks apart and pushing like his life depended on it makes me giggle.

This is a raid….

Tags

brothels, clients, laws, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, the boss

So where i work and have always worked, sex work is illegal. South Australian laws are really old and confusing and most of us are not entirely sure exactly where we stand. And even when we do know and understand the presice ancient legal word of the law, it’s the policing tactics that have a bigger impact on our daily lives, and they can change without rhyme or reason. Or maybe there is a reason that im just not aware of. Or maybe i have suspicions about possible reasons, but i aint writing it here. Or maybe there is no rhyme or reason. But the changing faces and farces of the South Australian Police is a story for another occasion.

This is the story of my first raid. I was 18. A receptionist in a massage parlour. I used to make $80 for 10 hours plus $2 for every job the business did. Kind of like a commission. It seemed like good money at the time, cash, no experience necessary. I mostly enjoyed my job there. Loved the other workers. Hated the bosses, but even back then i stood up for my rights and that of my colleagues.

It was during an era when brothel raids in Adelaide were insane. It was not uncommon for some brothels to have up to 3 major raids in a night, some workers clocked up to 50 separate charges of “being on premises in a 12 month period. One of my friends now has 84 counts of “being on premises” on her criminal record.

In an attempt to avoid this kind of police harassment this parlour was a very “straight” parlour. It was a health center that offered massages. Well that was the mask we wore. I would quote prices for a “full body massage” to potential clients over the phone or in person. Full body massage is code for massage with a happy ending. But if the potential clients didnt understand the secret language, we were in no position to educate them! We had to be careful, any client could be a cop. Not until the workers had undressed them would we know for a fact that they were not going to bust us.

My job was to answer the phone, greet clients, take money for the services, fold towels and clean spa’s.

I knew how to play it safe. It was drilled into me. My arrogant bosses would sit beside me and listen to every word i said on the phone yelling at me if i said anything they decided was putting us at risk of the cops. One day i even remember him threatening to ‘slit my throat from ear to ear’ if i got us in trouble. I wasnt scared of him, he was just a prick. But i didn’t really think about it much further than that. I was just a receptionist right? And plus our boss promised to look after us with the best lawyers if the worst should happen.

One day a woman came in for a job interview. She hadn’t worked before and my boss interviewed her. She was meant to be interviewed by the other business partner but my hot shot boss wanted to play the hero and interview the new girl, so he came in on his day off. She was the second woman that week who had been interviewed. I remember it well, he was showing off, bragging to her about how busy we were, showing her our booking sheet, telling her all our secrets.

She was a cop.

So was the other woman who came in for an interview.

The cops had been watching to see which bossman worked on what days and sent in undercover cops posing as women looking for work on different days trying to entrap both men. Haha. I still find it amusing that my boss was trying to be the big man and it made him get busted twice. Its the only amusing thing about the situation.

The undercover female cops came for the interviews and left without incident, not revealing they were cops, promising to call for a roster. Two days after the second interview i was showing a client in when there was a pounding on the door. I froze. They banged and hit the doors screaming “THIS IS THE POLICE! OPEN UP! THIS IS A RAID!”

Before i got to the door, they had managed to get the door open themselves and were storming in. Immediately we were all separated and then began a very long, lonely, scary 20 minutes.

They had stormed into all the workrooms, separated clients and workers, leaving workers alone while they bullied the clients into making statements against us. Threats like “you better tell us what you were doing here or we’ll go discuss this at your workplace” would have some clients giving us up in a second. Unfortunately this was one of those clients.

When the police finally got to me, they had one of the clients with them. They gathered us workers in a room. The main cop asked the client “which is the one who took her top off?” the client pointed at Melissa. “which is the one you paid the money too?” The client pointed at me.

It took 6 weeks for me to receive my summons in the mail with a court date to respond to charges of:

“receive money in a brothel”

“be on premises of a brothel”

“keep brothel”

I never heard form the bosses again, so much for their promises of the best lawyers.

I live with those charges against my name.

But at least i wasn’t arrested and held without bail. That’s a raid for a different story.

whore’s wisdom

Tags

brothels, discrimination, money, personal stories, Sex Work

Business has been quiet lately and so you get to thinking, and talking, and noticing funny little things. It’s so funny how things work out, funny the little way the world revolves, or the tide comes at the evening, or you think of someone and then they call.

And its funny how in the sex industry the phone doesn’t ring for hours and then 3 people ring and want a booking immediately and meanwhile u missed 2 calls while taking the bookings (yes you accept all three bookings for immediately, because whores wisdom tells you that one wont show up, and the other will be in and out quickly and one wont mind waiting for a short time.)

Funny how all 3 guys are named kevin

Or funny how noone rings the dam doorbell untill 30 seconds after the pizza is delivered.

Oh… here is a good one. I used to work in a parlour where the girls did ‘intros’ for the client one at a time, after they chose a girl they payed for the booking. If they did not see a girl who they wanted to see they were under no obligation to pay or stay, so ofcourse we would often have guys coming in for nothing more than ‘a look’. The boss told me once that if he sits on the bed, he never stays. I didn’t understand. She explained:

“I always tell them take a seat.. and i point to the chair, and over the years i have noticed that if they choose to sit on the bed, rather than the chair, they never ended up paying and staying..”

At first i couldn’t believe her, but i started paying attention and she was right!

So eventually when the receptionist would tell us to intro and the guy was sitting on the bed she would yell out “intro, he’s a bed sitter” and so we wouldn’t need to make much effort. Hey for any of you working in this type of situation, start paying attention and let me know if its true for you…!!!

While we are on that note, when they says they left their money in the car, you know they’re not coming back.

And another fact, for some clients the actual fantasy is to reject someone hot, so they come to brothels to look you up and down and then say in a patronising voice “oh, i wanted someone taller/shorter/skinner/curvier/bustier/younger/older/blonder/darker/anyone but you”!

Its funny how the least responsive clients, who looked like they was grimacing the whole way through the booking and left early without so much as a kiss on the cheek or a smile, is the very same client who becomes your most regular client spending hundreds on you every week.

It’s hilarious how if you tell clients how excellent you are, they believe you. If you tell them your worth 50 bucks, they pay it and attempt to demand everything on the menu (and even stuff that isn’t) and if you tell them your worth $500, they still pay and think you must be a princess.

It’s annoying how most clients think they are your only nice clients.

It’s funny how you don’t remember the client, untill you see the weird mole they have on their upper thigh, and that’s when you suddenly you remember that he was the guy who lived in the country and likes you to keep your shoes on.

It’s amusing how desperate some clients are to pretend that they made you orgasm, so that you don’t even need to fake it, a little bit of a sigh will have them asking “did u cum?!”

It’s great how you can sometimes be desperate for some fast cash, and so you start thinking how you just need that regular that always books for 3 hours at a time and pays for the fantasy dress up extra, to give you a call, and then he calls you…