The Madame of the house

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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.

Dear South Australian MPs and sex worker allies

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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.

Welcome To My Boudoir

Tags

brothels, clients, escort, friends and family, laws, Melbourne, money, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia

Yesterday I got the keys to my new work space, my very own unit! And today I did my first jobs from there.  I have worked in so many different spaces over the years, both for myself and for other people but I have never had my very own place just for me. It’s all mine and mine alone and it is very exciting. Setting it up and slowly settling in, I have been enjoying the challenge of decorating my new workplace in practical and attractive ways that are economical. I refuse to spend money that I haven’t yet earned, I’m not a gambling woman. Pilfering from my home, accepting donations of old furniture from friends and  towels and linen from ex workers and  watching my ideal work space come together, dreaming about future white goods and artwork. I can put things where ever I want, and they will still be there in the same spot when I come back the next day. It’s so fun not having to compromise with other people!

So because workrooms, brothel décor and furniture placement is what is on my mind I have decided to write about the places I have been paid to fuck in. There have been so many different places I have had paid sex but some things were always the same.

My first ever sex work booking was in a gym after hours. I had just started escorting and my first client was the Gym Manager. During that booking his desk became my workbench, I laid back on it with my legs in the air and he fucked me. The building was dark, big and a little daunting. Afterwards I washed at the basin in the ladies toilets. These days, after so many beds,  it would be a fun and interesting job, but back then for my first time, a well-lit private bedroom would have been preferable.

Over the years during escort bookings I have fucked in offices, in ware houses, in cars, in trucks, in the kitchen of a golf club during business hours, on couches, in wives beds, on the floors of empty houses with for sale signs out the front, in backyard sheds, in make shift floor beds, on spare single beds, in spa’s, in caravans, in hotels and motels and probably plenty of other places that i cannot think of.

Being in a clients home is never predictable, the clients might be but their homes and hospitality vary massively. Some clients will show you straight to the makeshift bed on the lounge room floor. Out of respect for their partners they wont do you in the marital bed or even let you close to the bedroom. Others don’t care and will have you in their bed with wedding pictures and children’s toys all around. Sometimes you get the distinct impression there might even be kids asleep in another room somewhere. I have been lucky to not be chased out of a house by an angry partner. Yet. It is a fear though, so I always keep my clothes and money close!

Some want you to have a drink with them or listen to their music or show you their garden or play a game of pool or introduce their dog or show off their big screen tv. Some wont want you anywhere near their things. Some have immaculately clean houses, some don’t. Sometimes you’re at a bachelor share pad in the middle of the day while the other house mates are at work and it doesn’t look like someone has cleaned the shower in years, let alone washed a towel for you. Sometimes you do it on their parents bed because they are away for the weekend and its cleaner than your clients bed.

The only thing the workspaces on my escort bookings have had in common is privacy. I do insist on privacy.  The cars have been parked on private property (like in the warehouse haha), the trucks have cute little private bed cubicles and I wont go into a house if I think there is more than my client at home. But once my client is horizontal, my handbag of tricks becomes my portable workstation containing all the tools of my trade such as condom, lube, massage oil, toys, wet ones and a mobile phone sometimes even some lip gloss.

But I prefer in-house work, where the client visits me and I get to control the environment. I pick the music, offer the drink, invite them to lay on my bed, set the lighting and make sure I have clean towels. Make my sex work space is the way I like it. The first brothel I worked at taught me everything I know about a good sex work space. Back in those days the police were very active and my boss used to move the brothel from townhouse to townhouse in order to evade the police or reopen after a bust. She told me it was important to have a place with an address that was simple and easy to find and impossible to confuse. It was so important to reduce the likelihood of clients going to the wrong door and  causing neighbours to complain and alert the police.

The town houses were 3 bedrooms with two bedrooms converted into work rooms and one being used for a client waiting room. There was a private space for workers (usually the kitchen)that was off limits to clients and whole place would be immaculate and clean.

In our work room we had a queen size firm and stable bed. No creeks or squeaks to distract  our clients during the important bits. Condoms in different sizes and flavours and sachets of lube in the bedside drawer. Tissues, wet ones, massage oil and talcum powder on the bedside table. A chair for clients to put their clothes on, a CD player with something like enya or sade playing, prettily rolled up fluffy towels stacked on a small stand and another towel on the bed folded into a fan like (wh)origami. After taking the clients money we unfold the towel flat onto the bed so the client could lay on it, decreasing any spills onto the bed sheets. And ofcourse there was a clock.

Most of the brothels I’ve worked at since then were pretty similar to this set up, although with varying degrees of cleanliness, classiness, and attractiveness. In Adelaide our brothels are so basic because the illegality prevents people from investing in them. Noone wants to put in spa’s and ceiling mirrors when it could be closed down any minute. Brothels are mostly rented premises in residential areas with usually only two or three work rooms.

Some of the brothels I worked at did not have condoms or lube in the room because they were worried about them being used as evidence, so they would be kept under lock and key only distributed sparingly as needed.

Some  staff rooms double as a waiting room for clients, meaning workers are always on display and on duty even between jobs. I hate that. Who wants to get stuck talking to someone elses client for twenty minutes while he waits for his worker? You have to be sweet and polite and noone is even paying you!

While most brothels I have worked in have been nicely decorated, with classy and sensual framed prints hanging on the walls there were some exceptions. One place I worked was decorated with framed photographs of the owners parents, children and family members. I always found this bizarre and slightly off-putting. I wonder if it was yet another strategy to throw the cops of the scent.

And then there was Melbourne, an eye opener. Ten work rooms, a shop front where the clients just let themselves in, big massive dressing room for the workers, showers built into every room, music playing in hidden speakers in every room, special purple lamps to do STI checks on clients, buzzers and intercoms in our rooms. And this brothel also had a couple of themed rooms, a B&D room with a big wooden chair with buckles on it, a rack with lots of toys and pain inflicting devices, and bed with bars and handcuffs attached to it. It also had an orgy room with a king size bed, a day bed and a spa in the room. But even with all the new features and modern conveniences, everything else was the same, there was still a bed, the towel folding, the tissues, wet ones, condoms and lube.

In my private work I have rented rooms with or from other workers and in hotels, motels and apartments. I bring my own towels, I put on the clock radio on for music and I take my money down to my car between jobs as there is often nowhere to hide it when in a small hotel room with your client right there. I put on the big room light for doing business and a softer bedside lamp for doing….. business. I have the same set up with my whorigami on the bed, my tissues, wet ones, lube, oil, talcum and sometimes my toys on the bedside table. I hang my sexy costumes and lingerie in sight for decoration and eye candy.

And there have been times when I worked on the floor, behind a screen on my friend’s apartment floor, or times when I worked on my other friends couch whist visiting her in Darwin (she was working from her bedroom). Times when I rented a room from the Asian parlour around the corner or from the busy suburban brothel 2 suburbs away. Each time I do my best to try ensure the space is private, clean, practical and comfortable and has some ambience or atmosphere. But even when I don’t, it doesn’t stop the clients from paying.  I have always felt guilty when inviting clients somewhere that I consider not up to scratch but they never seem to care. They are not there for the towel folding or the music playing.

But I am really enjoying being  able to offer my clients a shower in private, playing good music in the background and buying lots of fluffy soft towels. Maybe I should put my prices up?

Stop the traffic – the car crash

Tags

consent, discrimination, feminism, laws, Melbourne, money, rants, sex industry, sex trafficking, Sex Work, south australia, stigma

Like the car crash you can’t look away from….

I explained my suspicion of the anti trafficking rhetoric and I promised I wouldn’t leave it there. I want to tell you about the harms being created by the trafficking hysteria because the problem is not only misinformation and preconceived stereotypes, it has actual detrimental real and measurable effects on the daily lives of sex workers, Asian sex workers in particular. Get a load of this:

Knee jerk reactions to the 4 corners one sided story on trafficking in the sex industry resulted in immediate promises from law makers to introduce tougher laws. The four corners ‘expose’ relied on one sad story, lots of bad recreations, the occasional sound bite from experts only where it backed up the ongoing spin and ofcourse sex work abolitionist and founder of project respect, Kathleen Maltzhern. All set to a predictably dark and sinister soundtrack. Well done 4 Corners  award, you certainly got people to bite. even before airing of the show and still continuing media are all over it, opportunists using it and the politicians responded.

Now specifically and admittedly in response to 4 corners sensationalism New South Wales is likely to “toughen up laws on brothels”. NSW has the best laws in the country, and just like that it’s going to be taken away. And WA have just introduced a bill into parliament that among other shockers, criminalises ALL migrant sex workers. Even if you don’t share my opinion about the lack of actual trafficking in our industry, surely you understand that bad laws are not the answer. We already have laws about trafficking, how about we use them rather than making more and more laws that only serve to push us all further underground and make it more difficult for all of us in every way and do not work. Awesome 4 corners is now creating our public policy.

And in states like South Australia, where we are all illegal anyway, it means Asian brothels get raided more often. elping the sex slaves by regularly arresting, harassing and intimidating Asian sex workers, their employers and their clients more than usual. Despite all the hundreds of sex work related charges laid each year, there are very few cases of trafficking ever found. And the few cases where victims of trafficking have been identified, criminalisation did not or would not have helped them. And in some cases victims were not treated appropriately by the cops.

Not only are sex workers generally feeling the effects of harmful laws, and Asian sex workers get more attention from the police, but, our saviours come out of the woodwork, ready to sniff out the sex slave and try out their scriptures or skills. What this means for us? More patronising visits from various health services, church groups or any other outsiders forcing themselves into our workspaces and being inappropriate. In Adelaide, it’s RAHAB. A church group who run a ministry training course charging young Christians good money to do outreach to sex workers. These people visit Asian brothels (among other parts of the industry), forcing themselves onto people while they are at work, often with nothing translated, nothing practical to offer and asking personal questions. Sex workers feel pressured to play along and be friendly because there is a suspicion that they will inform the police if they are not allowed in to a particular premises (on the presumption that we must be harbouring slaves). No one in the industry wants to talk to them, they are untrained and inexperienced christians who say completely offensive things and give us patronising bars of soap and deodorant sticks as bribes. They have even been known to break the conidentiality of one Chinese woman in a serious and kind of shocking way.

Not that publicly outing someone matters when you’re intent on saving a sex slave. People and their lives are just vehicles for furthering an agenda in most cases. Victoria’s Project respect, headed up by the afore-mentioned Kathleen Maltzhern whose agender shone through the 4 corners special, was trading on the misery. Sure enough no sooner had the show finished but there were calls for donations to her organisation everywhere. As mentioned in my previous post on the subject, everyone jumped on board ready to ride the wave, all hoping to get some air time, or some funding or public support. From big sex industry business associations wanting to minimise competition to abolitionist feminists and church groups. And they are all getting the airtime and using it to make things worse while groups that actually represent us desperately need the same support.

And I suggest a lot of the willingness to believe the hype is due to a touch of racism effecting people’s views of Asian women and preconceived ideas about sex work generally. Add that to some sad music and some recreations and the proble seems likely. And so it feeds your views of sex workers and Asian women further. It’s a vicious cycle. I once heard a woman who did outreach with a church based group speak at (one of the many) anti trafficking forums. She told a story about the night she saw trafficking with her own eyes in a South Australian brothel. It was late one night and she said she couldn’t really know for sure if “lets call her Lucy” (her words not mine) was trafficked or not, but it seemed probable for the following reasons (explained in a sad knowing kind of way):

1. “Lucy” didn’t engage at all with the christian outreach worker but sat quietly in the corner listening, with a “sad look on her face”

2. “Lucy” didn’t speak English

3. “Lucy’s” Thai boss spoke English and chatted with the church outreach woman and explained how “Lucy” lives in Melbourne and is only in Adelaide for 2 weeks and will be going home soon.

4. The Thai female boss had a white Australian boyfriend who likes to travel.

That was it.

She told this story to a room full of other keen would be “helpers” and interested public who didn’t seem to bat an eyelid. I shudder to think what urban myths that presumptuous story has now created, and the effects of that story being recreated over dinner tables everywhere.

Can i just mention as a side note, that the constant portrayal of Asian women and sex workers as submissive, exploited and/or abused, is not good for business. It keeps the good clients away and attracts the creeps!

It’s like – what do you want from us?! No one is listening unless we give them victim porn! Reading the accounts by Nicholas Kristof in this awful book (that was a best seller but I had to abandon half way through) about buying the freedom of young sex workers in places like India and Thailand, and he spends an uncomfortable amount of time describing her physical features and her sad brown eyes, before going on to gloat about his own saint like characteristics. JUST PAY HER AND LEAVE HER ALONE ALREADY NICHOLAS!! And you lot just eat it up. Salivate for it even. White saviours rescuing pretty young sex slaves and returning them to innocence. To the point that for some people to believe me,  i first need to break down and disclose any traumatic experience i may have had right there in front of you. Before you even hear me! Here – Elena says it better than me.

*End rant*

(Stick with me on this, I am getting to the friendly bits where I hand out all the answers)

The Main Course

Tags

brothels, clients, consent, discrimination, laws, mandatory testing, Melbourne, personal stories, safe sex, sex industry, stigma, the boss, Victoria

After the raid at Karma Therapy I felt lucky. I had gotten away without being arrested or even charged, but it was the second one I had been through. The first one had left me with a criminal conviction that stays on my permanent police record and I didn’t want to know what would happen if I was caught in a third raid. So I began to think about other options.

I had heard that there were legal brothels in other states and I had met sex workers who had gone to Melbourne and made decent money. I was single and without responsibilities at the time and so after chatting with my friend we decided to travel to Melbourne for a working holiday. This was before everyone had the internet, and the only way to get information was to get our hands on a Victorian Yellow Pages and “let our fingers do the walking”.

Choosing a brothel in Melbourne to work at was as simple as calling up the first couple of ads that appealed to us for whatever reason and making some enquiries. We settled on the the place that seemed the most welcoming and didnt make us jump through too many hoops. That was “The Main Course”.

I just looked it up online, it still exists, but looks a lot classier than it was back then. Maybe I should have changed the name but I chose not to because, well, you can’t make up more a amusing name than “The Main Course”, but my recount about my time(s) there is from 15 years ago, so please, don’t take this post as some kind of “review” or description of the current establishment in any way..

And wow. It was an eye opener for me. It was the first time since I began in the sex industry, that I was working in a place that looked like what I had always pictured a brothel to look like. It was an old terrace house, with about 4 levels and 10 work rooms. All the work rooms had built in showers showers and buzzers and other brothelly conveniences. We had a staff dressing room and our own lounge and bathroom and there were cupboards and cupboards and cupboards and cupboards of clean fluffy towels everywhere. On a busy Saturday night I would be on shift with up to 20 other workers. It was a change compared to what I was used to, which was very small discreet settings with only two of us on shift. I have this vivid memory of the main course where I was leaning into the long mirror, the kind of mirror with stage lights all around, I was fixing my makeup along with a bunch of other women in various states of undress and lingerie, there were racks and racks of costumes and fetish wear behind me, and I could see into the lounge where there were even more women reading, knitting, passed out, eating, gossiping, and I just wished I had a camera. Well I wished I had a camera and was allowed to use it. I knew this image belonged in my future book. It’s ingrained in my memory as one of those… picture memories that signify a whole section of your life. It was so….. surreal.

I was young, shy, baby-faced, fairly innocent and good girl looking and here I was amongst these seasoned, sexy, confident, experienced women. It took me a while to settle in.

On our first night management  showed us around, told us the prices and introduced us to the other workers. We had to show our ID, which we weren’t used to (being from illegal Adelaide) and that made us a little nervous, but we quickly got over it.  As soon as the manager left us alone, the other workers grabbed us and starting whispering to us: “They say its $120 for half an hour but its $150 for half an hour, we all charge $30 more than management say, and we keep the extra money, we all do it, the clients expect it, and if you don’t do it, your undercutting us and then there will be issues”

(haha I notice according to the website that price hasn’t gone up in 15 years)

“but what if the client says he was quoted a lower price on the phone, wont we get in trouble?”

“No, if they demand the cheaper price, then just accept it, but give them a shit service, we all do it, you wont get into trouble”

“So I get my half of $120 plus the extra $30, sounds fine to me!”

And that was our orientation to our new workplace. But our initiation was yet to come. In Victoria, brothels are legal and licensed and one of the laws is that sex workers have to get tested for sexually transmitted infections regularly. I think it was fortnightly back then. As we had just arrived from Adelaide and come straight into work without our ‘pink slip’ (the medical certificate), our boss had been so kind as to book in a nurse to come to the brothel to do our tests. Now even back then, I could see the ridiculousness of this. For a start, it would be weeks before I got the results,  by which time I would be back in Adelaide, so what was the point? Secondly, things like HIV take 3 months to show up in your blood, so really it  was only going to tell them an accurate result for 3 months ago, if I had contracted something yesterday, it wouldn’t show up until 3 months time. And also, I use condoms all the time, so whats the issue?  And I got tested regularly by myself back home, I knew i didn’t need to get tested, I hadn’t broken any condoms, I hadn’t taken any risks. But, we went along with it because we wanted to work.

The nurse took me into one of the workrooms, got the bright light out, had me strip off below the waist (no discreet little privacy sheets or towels for a whore) and I layed on one of the brothel beds. Once in position she began poking and prodding me and shoving things into me.  It was awful, I mean, pap smears are kind of invasive at the best of times, but in this context? almost under duress? it was very undignified. But the worst bit was when she explained she was about to do an anal swab! I protested! Why did she need to do an anal swab? I don’t do anal sex. I don’t allow my clients or anyone in my personal life to go near my bum. But she insisted. I cried. The sensation of the swab being pushed into places where I didn’t want it. It was…….. confronting, and pointless, and when I think about it all these years later, it makes me angry. A whore’s holes are NOT public property!

I felt stupid for getting upset about this invasion of my body, but it didn’t detract from my desire to make money. I was lucky to have my friend with me who made me feel justified in my emotional reaction. But in the end I just wanted to get on with my job.  I mean, I HAD to make money now, I’d just had a nurse unconsensually shove objects into my anus so that i could have permission to make money. And so a money-making we did go.

Intro’s at The Main Course were a whole new thing again. I was used to us workers meeting the clients one at a time, having them tell the receptionist which worker they chose and then taking them to the room and beginning the service. And anyone who did the math earlier might have realised 10 work rooms and 20 workers on shift could occasionally present problems.

For a start, it was competitive. Very. And I’ve never been good at competitions. How could a quiet, innocent looking me  in my cute little office attire and full brief undies compete with these sexy g-string clad vixens with a skill for dirty talk? And then when a client did choose me, how do I hang on to them since usually we would have to wait for a room to become available, and in the  meantime every other worker in the place would walk past with her bedroom eyes and wandering hands and before you know it, my client would abandon me for them.

I spent the first night working hard and not making a lot of money. I watched the other workers, i tried to be like them, I was pashing clients before I even got a room just trying to keep them. I couldn’t compete. I gave up. But by the end of the first night I had figured it out. I didn’t need to compete. I had my own thing. All that stuff I was trying to play down, I needed to play it up. “I’m shy, innocent and the good girl next door, no I can’t dirty talk, but pick me, im super sweet.” And it worked. I had found my niche, and I liked it. Much easier than trying too hard to be something so far from what felt comfortable.

The main course had a good deal going for the workers that on the 10th job, you got to keep all the money. I hit that target plenty in my first week there. $1000 a night was a good night at the main course. Who can argue with that?