Big Australian Horse

Tags

asian brothels, brothels, clients, discrimination, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, the boss, trafficking

I used to work in a ‘Asian’ brothel.  It was owned and run by Maya, a Chinese woman in her fifties. Maya had migrated to Australia with her husband more than 20 years ago. She opened her own business after separating from her husband 10 years later. Maya had dabbled in sex work in China but only took it up full time in Australia after she was made redundant from her bank job. Opening her own brothel seemed a natural progression for Maya and even though business was successful she still continued to ‘jump the desk’ so to speak, servicing her clients,  sucking cock for cash like the rest of us, even after 10 years. Maya was a business woman. She worked very hard and was was proud of her success.

Maya was being extorted by her landlord. He charged her excessive rent for the commercial premises he leased her, smug in the power he had against her. He knew that stigma, discrimination and racism would stop Maya finding another premises to run her business from and he was right. But Maya was no push over, she was was always wheeling and dealing with the landlord, negotiating  improvements and additional inclusions to make up for the extra rent she was paying.

Mayas business was promoted in all the places adult services are advertised, alphabetically listed among other adverts that began with ‘Asian’, which comprises approximately one third of adult services adds in total. Maya and her workers knew their market well and worked it. I was the only white sex worker there, the others] workers came from a diverse range of backgrounds and Maya marketed them all expertly playing on a range of stereotypes that are usually applied to Asian women. Workers convincingly dropped their age by more than two decades when clients wanted younger workers, went from speaking English fluently to using broken English when clients wanted someone new to Australia, they softened their voice for clients that wanted someone submissive and gave each other crash courses in massage techniques to satisfy requests for an authentic Thai masseuse.  Googling countries, cultures and conversation language to assist them in playing the role requested by the client is all part of the service at Mayas.

Id started working at Mayas  after a friend introduced us and she offered me a room rental option It was a great deal, I ran my own advertisements, answered my own phone and paid a small fee per job for use of the work room, clean linen, use of the bathroom, and the staff room. The set up suited me perfectly.

Mayas business was similar to other brothels that id worked at. it was a discreet, converted house with 3 or 4 work rooms (bedrooms) and a separate staff room (kitchen/meals/lounge room)  which offered  the workers privacy from clients between jobs. There were 2 or 3 workers on shift at any time and the routine of meeting the clients and doing the booking was no different than anywhere else. The work was the same, the way we stayed safe from police and the authorities was the same and there was equal attention to hygiene as any other brothel Id worked in. This brothel traded on stereotypes, exploited fetishes, marketed itself in a way that ensured it was able to meet the expectations of the clients and at the same time encouraged potential workers to select it accordingly.Just like any other brothel.

I enjoyed the company of the other workers, like i always have. The staff room of a brothel is a special and unique place. it has the potential to produce moments of intimate connections and friendships with people whose real name you don’t even know. The experience of the work and the stigma associated with it helps to equalise us, our shared rejection of social expectations gives us the courage and ability to be open minded and non judgmental and the individual control over our own privacy allows us a rare degree of honesty and anonymity. This results in things being shared in staff rooms of brothels that may never be shared anywhere else. In Mayas staff room, just as always, we joked about the clients, shared tips and tricks, talked about the stigma and the laws we deal with and a range of other things in between.

But here i had the bonus of fresh home cooked food too! Because Mayas was just like any other brothel I’d worked at but it had some beautiful differences. It was so much more cozy than the often sterile brothels i had been used to. It always had the smell of home cooking, because someone was always cooking and the work rooms doubled as bedrooms for the travelling workers who were staying on premises and the decor had a personal touch. It felt homely because it was a home. The atmosphere was relaxed, workers chose when they worked, when they rested, and when they participated in the sense of community that was always present in the kitchen and dining room also known as the staff room.

Lots of sex workers are concerned about their privacy, and worry about being outed to their friends and family and It was no different in this brothel. Many of the workers i met at Mayas had chosen to maintain anonymity by travelling for work. Different workers came and went and came back and stayed or didn’t. The routine and rotation was different for each worker, depending on their lives and situations, their wants and needs.  Some had a regular circuit from state to state, some worked at Mayas around their study and uni holidays, some came to make a lump some for a specific purpose and had no intentions to continue after that, and some of us had our regular shifts each week. Some of us were local, some from interstate, or overseas. Workers were referred to Mayas by friends, other employers or via the very healthy grape vine that i became aware of.

Even though there were many languages being spoken, and the workforce was transient i quickly learnt that the majority of workers I met at Mayas were connected to a tightnit community of migrant workers that shared information, referrals, contacts and recommendations, that helped and cared for each other as a matter of responsibility beyond the context the work. There was a fully functioning network that spans the seas allowing workers to share important information with their colleagues, for example, the laws in each state or the best places to go for sexual health check ups or free condoms. It was impressive to see it in action. And places to work was just one of the types of information you could get from the network.

Id been working there a few weeks, and was happy with how it was going, but was trying to build my business up. So when Maya asked me if I wanted to pick up more clients i jumped at the chance. She suggested she could advertise me in the Chinese paper and market me to her clients along with the other workers. She proposed I would benefit from increased business and could repay the cost of the advertising from my first job. At first i was unsure if my tall buxom frame and blonde  bombshell image would be profitable with Mayas usual clientele who came to a place that carefully marketed a different stereotype. It felt like a risk to outlay money for the advertisement when i was unsure if would result in more business. But Maya explained that many Chinese clients visit her business because it has been recommended to them, or they don’t speak English or only read the Chinese news paper, these clients  have a variety of requests and fantasies, including buxom blondes. It made sense, so i agreed and Maya went ahead and ran an add in the Chinese newspaper for me.

I normally insist on having control over how I’m advertised, promoted and described to potential clients. I want to be comfortable with the way I’m marketed and i don’t want to deal with disappointed clients who had expected something different, but this time i decided to just let Maya do her thing. Business boomed and surprisingly Maya’s promotion generated a considerable increase in clients for me. The majority of my new clients were Chinese speaking men responding to the add in the Chinese paper that Maya had placed. I needant have doubted her astute sense of business and her knowledge of her market because despite my initial uncertainty her predictions were accurate. She continued to run my add in the Chinese newspaper regularly and I provided her clients the best service I could.

It was a few weeks later when i was chatting to the friend that had introduced me to Maya. I was full of gratitude for the introduction, expressing my satisfaction at how well business had been going. I told my friend how happy i was with the arrangement, and about all the extra business i was getting from the new add. I praised Mayas marketing techniques, explaining how I had initially thought Mayas clients wouldn’t be interested in seeing me, but thanks to Mayas skills and initiative, i had been very successful. My friend told me she had seen my add, and asked who wrote it. I told her i had left all that to Maya, because she knows her market so well. I hadn’t really even bothered to ask what it said. My friend laughed and agreed, Maya really did know her market. My friend told me the the add Maya was running for me that had resulted in so much unexpected work roughly translated into ‘big Australian horse has arrived, looking for many riders’ which she giggled and explained is similar to the ‘town bike’ analogy.

I blushed and we both laughed!  I was glad I let Maya have control over how she promoted me because its not an add i would have written. But if i had have written the add it may not have been so successful with Mayas clients. She really did know her market.

I continued seeing clients who were responding to the add and providing the best service I could with a deeper understanding of what they were expecting. To this day I still have clients who come to ride the big Australian horse and my friend still teases me about it.

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.

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.

A journey out of town

Tags

clients, discrimination, escort, friends and family, laws, Love, money, personal stories, Relationships, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss

After writing about the time I was dramatically evicted from the country town I was working in, I wanted to write more about my regular trips out of town. For a few years that was the way I worked. I would travel to some rural location, work solidly  for a couple days and return home cashed up. Sometimes I would go to different places but mostly I worked in the same town. It started with an agreement I made with my partner of the time. The only way he was going to be ok with me doing sex work is if I left town to do it.

So when a friend in the industry gave me a tip that there was decent cash to be made in a town few hours drive away, i decided to give it a go. I discussed it with my partner, chose a date and started making plans. As the time got closer, I became more nervous for different many reasons; was I going to make money? What if I lost money? Would it be worth the time it was taking from my busy life? Will I feel differently about the work after not having worked for a while?  Would I hate this particular way of working? Am I going to hate being stuck with a driver in a country town, miles from home? Will my partner act weird towards me when i got home? Would he think the money was worth it? Would there be any trouble from the police in town, or the hotel management or clients or the locals? I had all this on my mind as I planned my trip. All my decisions were based on attempting to minimise my financial and personal risk.

I ran an advert in the personals section of the local town paper the week before I was going to be there asking people to book in advance, as well as for the week that I was there. I never count the money before it’s in my hand but I was hoping to get an idea as to whether it was going to be worth my while or not by asking for advance bookings and i figured that giving the potential clients early notice of my trip couldn’t be a bad thing either. When planning future trips I decided to make it a rule that unless I had 10 confirmed bookings, I wouldn’t go. Often one or two would  cancel when I was already in town but I could usually pick a few new ones up too.

For this first trip I decided to use a driver. For the following trips I ditched the driver in favour of going with another worker, or even by myself but this time I wanted the security of having someone with me and I wasnt sure if business was going to be good enough to take another worker.

The day came, my driver arrived and we hit the road. I had my two phones, one for work, one for personal, a piece of paper with the details of the 12 confirmed bookings I had for the weekend, my little handbag with condoms, lube, massage oil, and a mini vibrator, a backpack with a little black dress, heels, stockings, trackies, a T shirt, make up, and toiletries. We drove for hours, telling each other stories and listening to music.

My driver was a friend of a friends, he had a nice car and he turned out to be very efficient and useful. He drove me all the way there and back, ran my errands, provided my security and even answered my phone and took bookings while i was busy. In return I paid him a flat fee plus expenses. It felt very luxurious having my own employee.

In trying to reduce the likelihood of contact with the police or being kicked out of my hotel, I decided to do mostly escort bookings where i visited the clients and only had the occasional client visiting me in my hotel. This is not my proffered way of working and in this town it was worse than usual. The town had had a big influx of workers and not enough accommodation to keep up so as a result I was visiting clients in caravan parks, share houses and on mattresses on the floor. I would have much preferred the clients visit me where I was in control of my surroundings but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself and I didn’t want my first trip to end disastrously. I kept discreet, had security measures in place and charged $50 more than I normally did.

I arrived in town at around 2pm and had 2 clients booked in straight up. As we got into town, I called my first client to let him know I was close and my driver pulled into a petrol station so I could use the bathroom and freshen up. It was going to be my first client in a while, I was in a new town, visiting them at their house. I didn’t know what to expect. As I knocked on his door and introduced myself, it all came back to me, like riding a bike. I took the cash and did my thing, in and out and on to the next one. They were not easy but not difficult either. I spent the full hour massaging, talking, sucking, fucking, washing and dressing. No early minutes for me. But I jumped into the car at the end of the second job happy that I had already made enough money to cover my expenses and I was ready to work hard and go home with a fortune.

My driver had taken a booking for me while I was in the second job, this time the client was going to come to my hotel room. I had an hour to spare so I relaxed and showered in my room. All the money I made from here on in was profit and it was only 4pm. I had shaken off the nerves of seeing my first client and my phone was ringing hot. I was trying not to get too excited about money i hadn’t even made yet.

I set my room up and got myself ready for my client. My driver was waiting to make sure i was ok, and then he was going to get me dinner. While waiting for my client to arrive I answered my phone and filled up my booking sheet between 8pm and midnight. I was feeling good that i was going to make money and I still had a couple of hours free straight after the next client.

The 6 – 8pm time slot stayed empty and i remembered it’s always quiet during that time wherever you are, it’s dinner time. It didn’t matter though because I was busy the rest of the evening, finishing up at 1am, exhausted and cashed up. I soaked myself in a hot steamy shower, put on my trackies and then rolled around in my money. I am not even joking. When i publish my book, you will see the photos of me rolling in $50 notes.

I had two bookings for first thing in the morning, one with a client from the night before and the other one was in the cabin of a truck. The client was too nervous to come to my hotel because he thought that people would see him and know he was visiting a hooker which is a common concern in a small town. I often wondered when i went out for food or through the drive through, if people knew i was the hooker that was advertising in their paper. Especially after i had been to the same town a few times.

By the time I had finished the truck job it was nearing check out time and i had to make a decision. I still had bookings for the next night but only a couple, and nothing during the day. Over breakfast I considered my options, should I  to stay on for another night or call it quits and head home. I had made nearly 2 grand and I was exhausted. I decided to leave on a high. I checked out of the hotel and did one last escort job on the way out of town.

The drive home felt so amazing. A renewed feeling of whore power! After 2 years of struggling on part time minimum wage, all  I had done was outlay $50 in advertising plus a spare sim card and i was able to make 2 grand in just over 24 hours with very little planning.

I was tired all over but i felt satisfied. I rewarded myself with a facial, massage and manicure and pedicure when I got home.

Over the coming years I got to know the town, the clients, the hotels, the take away shops, the bars, the pay weeks, and the routine. It wasnt always as financially rewarding as the first time, but it was successful for many years. It was always hard work but it was always the same amazing feeling on the drive home. Feeling powerful, feeling satisfied, feeling the big wad of cash..

Stop the Trafic – The Red Light

Tags

brothels, consent, discrimination, feminism, laws, money, rants, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss, unions, work, workers rights

This is part three in my series of posts about trafficking. I previously wrote about my suspicions in regards to the portrayal of sex trafficking in the media, and the motivations of the anti trafficking industry in Peak Hour, and the negative outcomes of the trafficking hysteria in The Car Crash. This post is the answer. A green light for migrant sex workers and a red light for trafficking.

If you follow on from my original post the answer seems really obvious to me. There are many sex workers all around the world who travel or would like to travel. Just let them do it.

Let people apply for working Visa’s in Australia as a sex worker. As I have mentioned, I personally have the contact details of at least 10 sex workers currently working in China who would love to come to Australia to work in your brothel, if they could get a Visa. The barrier is that they are unable to get a working Visa as a sex worker. Not to mention the process of applying for Visa’s to enter Australia is extremely difficult because we conveniently do not translate the required documents, so people who do not speak or read English, often need a third person to help them apply for their travel documents. Some of the sex workers I referred to have considered paying a third person a lot of money to assist them in travelling to Australia to work, and some knew other workers who had done that. Obviously being in a lot of debt to the person assisting you travel or your employer does create vulnerabilities for the worker though, it can take away a some of their bargaining power and in some cases could restrict the sex workers choices.  A few simple changes could allow sex workers from around the world to come to Australia willingly to work. There would be no demand for stolen or coerced non sex working Asian women in the sex industry, because lets face it while having sex slaves in place of willing workers might be slightly better for short term profits, it has got to create some serious challenges. Cut out the middle man and the demand by allowing migrant sex workers to enter and work in Australia legally and independently.

That is ofcourse if your concern is stopping trafficking, and not stopping sex work.

It might also be useful to educate all sex workers, our employers, our clients and the general community about our rights, in appropriate and useful ways. Through our peer organisations and that are supported to make sure they can outreach to all sex workers from all backgrounds making sure people know their rights. Make sure we all know what we should expect and what is not OK at work so that we are less likely to be exploited or treated badly and we know what to do or who we can get more information or support from if we do have problems at work.

Of course, where I live in South Australia that would mean giving us some rights in the first place. Decriminalise sex work, and give us our rights!

Educate the wider community, health and welfare services and the police to treat sex workers with respect. Help break down the stigma of being or seeing a sex worker, so that we can talk to people about what’s going on without fear of being judged. The discriminatory perceptions that exist about sex workers and our clients doesn’t make it easy for us to share anything openly or honestly, or to voice our concerns.

Take crimes against us seriously. Dont turn it into a witch hunt on an entire industry, or blame my choice of work, just give me the support I need and deal with the crime at hand. Create safe spaces for people to report crimes, concerns or suspicions and then treat those reports seriously, and respectfully, like you would if the crime or complaint had been committed in a restaurant.

Encourage and  support our organising. In Australia, we havent got our own union, but we have our own workers rights groups and organisations. Many sex workers are members of those organisations and many many many more sex workers receive support, information or advocacy around workplace issues from these groups and organisations. They are also fighting for our workers rights at a state and national level. Strong sex worker organising reduces the risks of us being exploited at work.

Stop the police raids. Stop pushing us and our workplaces, industry, employers and clients so far underground that we can barely see the light. Change the approach and try protecting sex workers instead of scaring us. Save the raids for actual crimes.

Is it really that difficult? Want to stop slavery? Free the slaves.

Seriously, allow sex workers to travel to Australia and work in the sex industry legally, educate them on how to do that, give us rights, make sure we know our rights, create safe and supportive spaces for us or our clients to report crimes or concerns or to make complaints, treat those reports with respect and take them seriously, stop thinking and suggesting that being treated badly is part of doing sex work, support us to organise to improve our work conditions for all sex workers and make the cops protect us instead or raiding us.

sex work 101

Tags

brothels, clients, consent, disability, discrimination, friends and family, laws, Love, money, nursing, parenting, personal stories, rants, Relationships, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, sexuality, single mothers, south australia, stigma, the boss

Your beginners course in understanding my work. Written in the interests of answering the common questions and misconceptions and saving sex workers from having to deliver a sex work 101 class to every person they disclose to.

1. I have good sexual health. I know this because I get tested. I get tested twice a year and more if there have been any risks. Some workers go more often. I use condoms for oral and full sex, i do visual checks on my clients for STI’s, I use lots of lube and have access to a variety of sizes in condoms, I know my condoms are in date and stored properly, I put it on, I take it off, i regularly check the condom during sex to make sure it is in tact and in place and for all of these reasons, I rarely have a condom break or slip. I also use condoms on toys and on  fingers if they are to be inserted anywhere. Sex workers in this country are known to have better sexual health than the general public. We are professional about our sexual health.

2. Being raped or assaulted is not a part of my job. I have never been raped or hit during my sex wok job. When it happens to a sex worker it must be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately, not written off an inevitable part of the industry.

3. My clients come from all walks of life. There is no typical client. As long as they are clean and respectful, then I am happy to provide them a service. If they are not clean, I don’t mind waiting while they take a shower.

4. There is no typical sex worker, I know sex workers of all ages, I have a friend in her late 60’s and I know of even older. Fat or thin, tall or short, everyone can make money in the sex industry.

5. The sex I have at work is work. For me it is not comparable to the sex I have for pleasure or with a partner. That doesn’t mean I never enjoy it. Compare it to working in a childcare centre looking after other people’s kids all day, i might enjoy it and I might like those kids but it is very different to how feel when i care for my own child. It is just a service, an intimate service yes, but there are many jobs where people provide intimate services for money, such as childcare.

6. I’ve been known to partake in a recreational drug here and there but I do not have a drug habit to support, and I do not need to be wasted to work. Drug use is a characteristic of our industry, in that it’s slightly more accepted in some (not all – many try to distance themselves) workplaces. If drug use itself is higher in the sex industry than in other industries (say for example the nursing sector) then I offer the following explanations: Firstly,obviously the money in sex work is better. If you have a drug addiction to support or if your vice of choice is expensive, sex work is an attractive financial option. This is also true for big gamblers, shoppers, travellers, spenders, and those in debt. Secondly the flexibility of sex work makes it an attractive work option for those who don’t fit neatly into the mon to fri 9- 5, stay in your box and conform-or-else,  type jobs. What I mean is, as a sex worker you can work for yourself, you can work for boss, you can work a few hours or you can work a few days solid, you can work regularly or on and off, you can call in sick all the time and still have a job. This means that people who need some extra money to score today, and the people who can’t get stable work because their life is not stable, or those people who can’t work long shifts because they need to self medicate, or people who get sacked from ‘straight’ workplaces because they were found out for using their sick leave to detox, still have a job option. I’m not using this post to weigh in on the ‘drugs are bad mmmkay’ debate, but I will say, people who use drugs either recreationally or habitually, can and are, and should be encouraged to be productive members of our communities, and it is up to everyone to make that possible. The sex industry has managed to make that possible and I think that is why drug use is more visible in our industry.

7. I personally do not have a mental health diagnosis. I think that makes me the opposite of normal these days. My point is, you don’t have to be damaged or deluded to exchange sex for money. Getting paid for sex also doesn’t cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression or any other label. What can cause a whole array of mental health problems is ongoing stigma and discrimination, harassment, criminalisation and all its associated issues, unsafe workplaces, isolation, and any other number of life experiences and chemical reactions. There is nothing inherently damaging either physically, emotionally or mentally about getting paid for sex, though there are often factors associated with sex work that can cloud our experiences. And many sex workers do live with a mental illness and I doubt it is over represented in our industry. But like drugs, i think it is more accepted in our industry and the flexibility means that people with health considerations can find suitable work in the flexible sex industry, allowing them to manage their health and stay gainfully employed. Again, I think rather than giving our industry a hard time, other industries should be taking note. Stop with the exit strategies for sex workers,  how about “entering strategies” rolled out to the employers whose work conditions are so rigid ensuring they are not accessible to people with caring responsibilities, with health considerations and disabilities, or to people who use drugs, older people, people with less English skills, or students, people with gaps in their resume’s and people with criminal records, or to people who need extra help or people who just want some control of their own working lives. These are the benefits of the sex industry, not the negatives.

8. There are no Madame’s and Pimps. OK, well there are female brothel owners and we do call them Madame’s, but they are really just an employer. They don’t generally have any other special role in our lives, just like any employer and employee relationship.  And there are boyfriends/partners, drivers, drug dealers and runners, security and bosses. And maybe in other countries they are called pimps, but not in Australia. There people in abusive relationships who are being pressured to work when they don’t want to on in ways they don’t want to. But that is domestic violence, not pimping. The reality in Adelaide is that there are lots of brothels and lots of bosses, some are good and some are bad but there is even more sex workers who work for themselves or in small collectives who have total control.

9. Yes the money is good, but not ridiculous. It used to be much better but an increase in the industry and a decrease in disposable income has meant it is not the gold mine i once felt like (or maybe I’m jut getting older 😉 ). Adelaide sex workers are among the cheapest sex workers in Australia. A mixture of different services offered by different workers, no labour rights or baseline wages in force, competitive market and vastly varying overheads make it difficult to negotiate pay rises across the industry or individually. When I first started sex work 20 years ago the average rate for an hour ‘fully inclusive’ session in a Adelaide brothel was $110 – 160 and about 5 years ago we had our first big price hike and now the going rate is about $160 – $240 for an hour. The sex worker generally gets about 50 – 60%. Keep in mind that most brothels also offer half hour or shorter services (I once worked in a brothel where I got paid $25 fr a quick fuck! needless to say I didn’t stay there long)and will provide discounts for longer bookings, some take shift fees or other cuts, and many sex workers offer ‘extras’ for extra cost or provide a different service for a different cost, private workers set their own prices based on overheads, services, commercial factors and their style of doing business. Give or take a few tips and noshows and there is no way I could give you any kind of average earning.  I can tell you that if I work for an 8 hour shift in a brothel I would expect to earn between $200 and $500 but depending on the business, the time of day/year, the number of workers on shift, the price of service and cut I got, and a massive range of other factors, including luck, it would not be unusual for a sex worker in Adelaide to leave an 8 hour shift with anywhere between zero and thousands.

10. I currently do pay tax on my sex work income. I have to if I want to participate in the world of house and car loans, or any other significant financial transactions. I haven’t always paid tax on my sex work income because I feel it is unfair to take my tax money but afford me no rights in return. Infact the opposite, I pay tax on my income but my assets can be confiscated as ‘proceeds of crime’, my cash could have me charged with ‘illegal possession’, my business could be closed down at any point and my livelihood gone, without compensation, my health and home and professional insurance is not valid due to my illegal activity. But regardless of any of that, if I want to spend my money, I have to declare it. And many other sex workers and sex industry businesses are in the same boat. The glaring contradiction comes from the fact that a) The Australian Tax Office doesn’t care how you make your money as long as you pay tax on it, in one of their staffers words ‘even a hit man can declare their income and claim their expenses’ and b) Australia’s tax system is a national system and our sex work laws are state based and every other state has some form of legal sex work. Now ofcourse, being a cash based industry, I’m sure not every cent is declared, and being very good at evading authority and remaining undetected, I’m sure not all brothels are paying tax, and why should they until their business’s are deemed legitimate. But the truth is that three things in life are inevitable – your born, you pay taxes and you die.

Stop the Traffic! Peak Hour…

Tags

clients, consent, discrimination, false consciousness, fantasy, feminism, friends and family, laws, money, rants, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss, trafficking

Hot topic of the moment – human trafficking. Not to be confused with people smuggling. But feel free to mix it up with sex work and migrant workers, or just Asian women generally. There’s been a lot of media about the problem, politicians are discussing it, feminist and church groups are concerned about it and 4 corners is exposing it. Well I’m calling bullshit and here’s why!

I’ve worked in nearly every brothel in Adelaide for many years and I’ve never worked with anyone or met anyone who has  worked with someone who was being forced into it. If I or anyone I knew, ever worked with someone who was there against their will, we would call the cops.

It makes sense that sex workers would care the most about this sort of thing. If it’s happening, it’s happening in our industry, to our colleagues, in our workplaces, by our bosses and with our clients. Of course we would know and ofcourse we wouldn’t do nothing while this happened to us or our colleagues!

Maybe we don’t know about these sex slaves in our own industry. Maybe they are not in the brothels that I work at, or anyone I know has worked at, but in some secret dark and unknown brothel that no one knows about. Well there are still some people who would need to know about it – the clients.

I’ve seen a lot of clients in my time and I have had a lot of requests. Clients generally seem to prefer workers who want to be there, or are at least very good at pretending they enjoy their job. Most of my clients ask to kiss and cuddle not to have me sad and broken. 

Our clients are not demons. They are just clients. If you went to a restaurant do you want to be served by someone who is being forced to work against their will under awful conditions, or do you prefer to think your waiter is treated well and therefore treats you well? I have faith that there is more business in happy hookers than there is in Asian sex slaves. Not to say that there isn’t any money in Asian sex slaves, but happy hookers can play that character if required.

I have worked in Asian brothels. I worked for 12 months in a brothel that was run by a Chinese sex worker and had many workers, mainly Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. These women were not your stereotype victim. They were very often strong, clever, motivated women who worked hard to provide for themselves and often their family. They were also very good business women, who knew how to manipulate the industry to bring in the maximum profit.

That includes playing up to your stereotype, if that’s what will make them money. We all do it. Find our niche and work it. I loved listening to the workers play up their soft accents or act out the submissive Asian girl character for the sake of taking his money. Just like most of us hookers, they knew how to be a mattress actress, while skilfully and assertively negotiating their terms and providing their service without ever breaking character. Until the client leaves. And then its back to loudly laughing and teasing each other, cooking the whole place a feast or yelling down the phone to their family and friends.

And these workers know how to make money.

There are a few well-known cases of rich old white men roaming around South East Asia or poorer parts of India trying save the prostitutes by “buying their freedom” from the brothel that has captured them. In many of these cases the newly freed victim returns to the brothel of their own accord and it’s usually blamed on drug addiction, inability to cope in outside world or economic necessity. But it makes me wonder because I can totally picture a sex worker in a Thailand brothel meeting one of these geezers while they are on shift, he starts talking about buying her freedom and the $$ flashes above his head. She goes down to the boss and says something like “it’s another one of those knight in shining armour fantasies again, I reckon he’s rich, lets tell him its US$5000 to buy my freedom”. She goes back to his hotel with him and tells him sad stories, he then takes her “home to her village” before he trots off to write his award-winning saviour book and she goes back to work having made a months wages with that one client.

In the Asian brothels I have worked at, I have been treated better than in many of the other brothels I have worked at. The working conditions were better. My cut of the service fee was fairer, and I felt like part of a family. Lots of the workers came and went, but that’s because most of the workers I worked with in Adelaide Asian brothels actually lived in other states. They came to Adelaide to do sex work because they wanted to remain discreet. They didn’t want to do sex work in their own small communities in their own home states because of the stigma we all face. But we felt like part of a family. Often the workers would live and work in the brothel for a few weeks at a time before returning home and the coming back every few months. This meant our workplace was also someone’s house so we’d share home cooked meals and intimacies that you share when you spend that much time in someone’s living space. This community was networked and looked after each other.

I have been to parts of Asia and Pacific countries and hung out with sex workers there. When I was in China recently, all the sex workers I met wanted to come to Australia. They asked me so many questions about how they could get here. Many knew someone, who knew someone, who could help them come here for a considerable fee. Many knew people who had decided to take that option and had been happy with their business arrangement. No one knew people who had been tricked into doing sex work in another country. Although some people knew some sex workers who had been mislead about work conditions or contract arrangements, but they weren’t told they were going to be a waitress.

Why would traffickers have to trick someone to come to Australia to work as a sex worker, when I could right now give you the contact details of 20 gorgeous young Chinese sex workers who would pay you money to bring them here to work happily and voluntarily in your brothel? They can even  play a perfect game of submissive sex object if you’re willing to pay.

Why would someone take these risks for an unhappy unwilling worker when other sex workers and our clients will not tolerate it?

It doesn’t ring true to me. It isn’t logical. There is no evidence and I call bullshit.

And it’s more than that. I was reading this great book about the history of sex work in Australia and it talked about in the early 1900’s the media and public concern with the “white slave trade” back then it was all about young white girls accepting overseas domestic jobs with evil European or Japanese villains who would then trick them into prostitution. There was very little evidence of this however and infact it seems there is a lot of evidence of workers of all nationalities migrating for better work conditions, include young white Australian female sex workers. It also tells of how the Salvation Army and many feminists attempted to save sex workers by forcing them to work in laundries in sweatshop like conditions, and had their pays docked to cover lodge and boarding. It’s still the feminists and the salvation army who are trying to raid our workplaces, rescue sex workers and rehabilitate us into a less than suitable job.

That rings true to me.

And it’s more than even that. If people care about us, how come the cops don’t do anything when you tell them your boss is withholding pay or taking unlawful fines or blackmailing you but they jump on the trafficking bandwagon, taking it upon themselves to raid Asian brothels intimidating everyone they find. How come the same feminists who fight to close our workplaces now act like they care about us but don’t listen when we fight for workers rights. How come the church groups that used to be about saving us from our sins now want to force themselves upon asian sex slaves and call themselves an anti trafficking group. And how come adult business groups (big bosses of big legal brothels) are so quick accuse their competition of trafficking, the same brothels they used to accuse of spreading disease. Why don’t any of these people care about trafficking in other industries? And how come I still haven’t met any of these trafficked sex slaves. It’s because these groups have seized the few sad stories they have ‘exposed’ to serve their purpose and further their agenda. Sex workers have been yelling for years about our problems, but no one is interested in sensible boring workers rights and anti discrimination strategies.

Sex workers DO experience exploitation at work. Migrant workers DO have barriers to accessing support and services. Our immigration and our Visa systems DO make Asian sex workers vulnerable. We DO want allies and attention to these issues. We DO need urgent legislation reviews and reforms.

But you’re getting it all wrong. Media hysteria and more cops and reactionary policy and strengthened stereotypes and preconceived ideas and misinformation and salivating over discovered victims and villains and then some more cops. It isn’t helping!

I wont leave this here,  I’ll write more about this very soon, in particular about the real life harms of the sex trafficking rhetoric and what sex workers want to address these issues. Up next in the ‘stop the traffic’ series is ‘the car accident you can’t look away from’ followed by ‘the scenic route’ .

Hey little sister

Tags

brothels, clients, consent, discrimination, escort, friends and family, kink, laws, money, personal stories, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma, the boss, whore shame

One of the problems with anything criminalised and stigmatised is that it can be very difficult to get accurate, up to date, relevant and reliable information about it. Writing this blog has led to a number of people emailing and messaging me asking about getting started in sex work. I want to tell you everything I know, but there are so many variables, and I’d be here all day. So as an introduction I write you this letter. I have already written letters to feminists and to clients, Hey little sister is my shout out to all the wanna be hookers. Here are the 20 things I want you to know.

1. Take the money upfront – It’s probably universal, no matter what sector of the industry you’re in, you ALWAYS get the money first. Even if they’re a regular, take the money up front. The one time you don’t do it will be the one time you learn the lesson.

2. Get in touch with your local sex worker organisation – In South Australia, that’s SIN, or you can find the national list here or there is a massive international list here. They will be able to give you current information about the laws and policing strategies in your area. They also have lots of other information and services you might like to access (now or down the track) so have a chat and find out what they can offer. Usually they are staffed by other current or former sex workers, so you wont get judged and you will get the information you need.

3. If you can, work a few shifts or even a few months in a brothel situation with other workers. It’s like an apprenticeship. You’ll learn lots from hanging out with the other staff between clients. You’ll get tips and tricks about the actual work, particular clients, the industry, good places to work, how to avoid police etc etc. It can also be a good debriefing space if there is no one else in your life that you can talk to about your job.

4. Remember you and your service are the product. If you are working for a boss, keep in mind that they need you more than you need them. If you’re not happy with your workplace there are usually plenty of other options in the sex industry open to you.

5. Don’t try to please all the people all the time. Decide before your first booking or shift what you are willing to do, what you are not willing to do, and what you will do only if they pay extra. If you work for a boss, there will probably be some expectation that you will provide a certain service and sometimes it can be difficult to know exactly what will be expected because the laws prevent candid conversations. Be clear in your own mind about your rules and stick to them. If it turns out your workplace isn’t compatible with your needs, you can usually find one that is. If not, you can always work for yourself, that way you can say when, you can say who, you can say how, and how much! Generally if you work for a brothel, you will be expected to provide massage, oral sex and penetrative sex. You are not required to kiss, let clients go down on you, provide anal services or provide any kind of other fantasy or role play. If you choose to offer those extra services, you may sometimes be able to charge extra. You should also remember that fully inclusive services (full sex) are only one type of service in the industry, there are many ‘full body massage’ places, strip joints etc where you can provide an array of sexual services that do not involve full sex. One of the beauties of sex work is you can really make it work for you.

6. Have a basic routine. You’re providing your client with a service. You do it to them, not have them do to you. You can always vary and adapt your routine but have one developed to fall back on. Don’t just lay on a bed and allow them to poke and prod you. Stay in control, even when you pretend you’re not.

7. Use condoms even for oral sex. Use lots of lube because condoms dry you out. If you’re not good with condoms, practice. Make it part of your routine. Don’t listen to any of the clients excuses about why they can’t or shouldn’t have to use one. Don’t even ask them, just slip it on.

8. Don’t be scared to call the police if you need them in an emergency (and then call your sex worker organisation straight after to help you deal with the cops). If you’re in danger, the police need to help you.

9. If sex work is illegal where you are – admit to nothing ever without first speaking to a lawyer. Knowing what you do and proving it are very different.

10. There are a bunch of safety tips I want to tell you, but I don’t want to give away our secrets so publicly because it will decrease their effectiveness. Again your local sex worker organisation can probably help you with that, or private message me.

11. Don’t believe clients. They will always tell you that such and such is doing more for less. It’s a trick. Don’t drop your prices or do services you’re not comfortable doing trying to keep up with the imaginary services of the sex workers your clients are telling you about.

12. You’re hot, and you will make plenty of $$. It doesn’t matter what you look like, how old you are or what gender you are. Find out what it is about your looks, your personality or your skills…. and work it! Don’t try to be someone you’re not or compete with anyone else. There are so many tastes and so many kinks that I guarantee you are exactly what someone has been looking for. You may need to experiment with different workplaces and ways of working to maximise your marketing spin.

13. Invent a story to go with your name. Clients inevitably want to get to know you. If you’re trying to keep some privacy it can be easy to forget who you told what to. Decide on a basic life story and an answer to the “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this” question, and stick to it.

14. Fake it till you make it. Both confidence and orgasms.

15. Be careful who you tell. Once you come out of the closet it can be very difficult to go back in.

16. Don’t apologise. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Sex work is just work.

17. Take your bosses word with a pinch of salt. They might try to put you off other workplaces or lie to you about taxes. Talk to your colleagues, the other sex workers in the business or elsewhere.

18. Dont think you’re better than any other sex worker. Whether you work for yourself, or for someone else, in a brothel, on the street, or doing escort services, providing full sex or any other kind of sexual service. There are so many ways of doing what we do, and different types of sex work appeal to different people for so many different reasons. We are all in this together.

19. Trust your gut. If a client gives you the creeps, don’t take the booking.

20. Enjoy your money. Spend it, save it, give it away! Whatever! It’s yours, you earned it, and there’s plenty more where that came from.

The many wigs of a whore

Tags

clients, discrimination, escort, friends and family, Love, money, mother blame, parenting, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, single mothers, south australia, stigma, the boss, whore shame

I was pretty keen to return to sex work after doing the dutiful wife thing for a while. During my semi retirement from the sex industry I had found other work and done some study. I did enjoy my ‘straight job’ but as soon as I separated from my children’s father I was planning my return to sex work.

I missed the money and the flexibility of sex work. Obviously. But it was more than that. I missed hanging out with other sex workers, I missed providing indulgent pleasure, I missed the compliments, I missed the feeling of being my own boss, even when I was working for someone else there is power in knowing you are (or your service is) the ‘product’. And Ofcourse I missed playing dress ups! Wigs, lingerie, costumes, sexy shoes, red lipstick, pretty nails… the best excuse for a usually plain looking busy single mum to indulge my girly side!

Besides stopping sex work was never my idea in the first place so I had  no doubts about returning.

But things had changed since the last time I worked. I’m mother now. I had to rethink my happy hooker image this time round. So for the first time I went into the hooker closet where I stayed for a long time. I wanted to protect my children from the stigma that my job carries, and I needed to protect our family from the discrimination that we might have otherwise faced. Through sheer determination my separation with the father had been fairly painless, there had been no custody battles and I certainly didn’t want to jeopardise that. Not to mention, sex work is STILL ILLEGAL in South Australia! I didn’t want to make our family vulnerable to attacks from any of the possibilities I had considered or the ones I hadn’t. So I invested in a wig.

I reduced my hours at my straight job, took my wig and started working at a very small escort agency. Originally I only kept my straight job as a cover so my friends, family and the whole world wouldn’t find out my dirty little secret but it turned out I really enjoyed the variety of the different roles I had or the different hats I wore in my day-to-day life. I was a stay at home mum on some days, I had a respectable day job on some days, made wads of cash on other days and, with my kids spending every second weekend at their dads, I had a chance to act my age and spend my wads of cash on the occasional night out on the town. I even kept up with a little bit of study throughout it all, it kept me busy between bookings.

And busy I was. The escort agency I worked at was very small with not many staff. I mainly worked  during the day sitting alone with the receptionist while she worked the phones trying to secure bookings. When she got one the owner/driver would drive me to my booking and bring me back to the office to wait for the next one. Day business for escorting was pretty quiet and that was fine for me because it meant I was the only worker on shift. But it also meant I was pretty much the only one making money.  Businesses need more than one worker to make a profit. So when the receptionist left, the owner decided not to replace her.

Fine by me, I started answering the phones. I could do a better job of selling myself anyway, plus this way I get all the day bookings PLUS the receptionists cut!

Now here is where I let you client types in on a little secret. I know many trade secrets, most of which I will never tell.  But some are harmless and make for a good story.

I’m sure this will not come as a surprise to those experienced punters, but many sex industry businesses find very creative ways of marketing the workers they have available to potential clients. While mostly it’s just a case of finding enticing ways to describe the workers using rose-tinted glosses and sexy adjectives, there are some businesses that will take it further. Everything from exaggerated measurements and optimistic age ranges to completely made up characters are used in an attempt to get a bite from potential clients. Some places are worse for this than others, I once worked at an agency that had standard adds running daily in the local paper that read “Eva Italian brunette lingerie model” or “Candi the blonde beach babe” and when a client called up looking for Eva or Candi the agency would send out any blonde or any brunette available. And if there is no blonde to play the part of Candi, no problems, we have wigs.

A common trick is to ask the caller what kind of worker they were looking for. If they tell you they want a mature redhead – Hey Presto!  That’s what we invent.

And so with only one worker (me) answering phones and doing bookings I quickly adapted to this sales technique. I had 2 different wigs, 3 different names (4 if you include the receptionists name) and a couple of different life stories.

I was Nikki the 21-year-old bubbly blonde, busty and cute

I was Bridget the brunette in her early twenties with the hourglass figure

I was Melissa who was 27 with a platinum bob and long legs.

And I could pass for all three descriptions easily. I enjoyed playing the game, it amused me. As a single mum I already had so many different hats, and now one of them was wearing a bunch of different wigs.

Pimping out my three characters worked well for a while, they all got repeat business and we all made money. And  then the inevitable happened. One of Nikki’s clients wanted a booking with Bridget. And he was quite persistent.

Well I had felt pretty clever up until then, but the gig was up.  I was a good mattress actress but I couldn’t pull that one-off (so to speak). The client was disappointed to learn that both Bridget and Melissa had run off into the sunset together never to return, preventing him from ever meeting either of them.

Not long after, I took Nikki off the market and went looking for greener pastures.