Tag Archives: prostitute

Nonmonogamy research, gender, self care, and HIV

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Links to share:

This is a pretty fascinating summary of research done on the perception of different types of nonmonogamy; spoiler alert, poly folks were perceived to be more moral while swingers were perceived to be more adventurous.

A pretty awesome piece written on the lessons to be gained from dating someone in an open relationship

A fun compilation of vagina facts

Ginny on using language to be more gender-inclusive

The Gottman blog on self care, autonomy, closeness, and relationship interdependence

Interesting ideas on why childfree couples seem to cheat less than their counterparts with children

I love this infographic from The Lancet on HIV and sex workers:

Lancet-sex-work-infographic_930px (1)

Control & Support Groups

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I have been fairly pissed the past couple of weeks, because for some strange unknown reason, the manager at my club just stopped scheduling me. I’ve worked there almost two years! The first week was the week that made me most mad- it was my regular shift I signed up for, and I have a really limited availability since I work during the week. I was frustrated all week about it, and primarily because my manager just did not communicate with me about why I wasn’t scheduled. He just didn’t tell me anything about it. If it was a mistake, that’s fine- tell me. If there’s a reason, that’s fine- tell me. No communication is just immature, unprofessional, and disrespectful. And then this past weekend, I sent in my shift request late and it was for a shift that I never work, so I expected not to be scheduled. Still, when I wasn’t, I was frustrated.

But it finally gave me a kick in the pants to move beyond my comfort zone and go audition at other places. I auditioned at one new place this past week, and it was exhilarating to be in a new space with new people. I’d like to audition at a few other places and ride the energy of exploring new places. I am such a creature of routine that it usually takes me getting pretty upset or frustrated with something before I try to change it. So here’s to some change!

And I realized why it got under my skin so badly. It reminded me of my experience with school this past year, and someone else controlling how and when and where I use my body. My professor told me, in essence, I needed to choose between education and stripping. And the manager at my regular club told me, by not scheduling me, that I was not going to strip at his club. The lack of agency I felt was overwhelming. Now that I recognize that that was the underlying drive and feeling, I have been more relaxed, knowing I can find another place to dance if need be.

Similar to the constraining feelings of control- this piece on Stripper Economics was recently published by the Portland Mercury, and delves a little bit into the independent contractor versus employee issue. It’s a little flat, but decent coverage of how the work environment is in Portland clubs. It doesn’t seem like the reporter talked to many dancers, which is unfortunate.

In other sex work-related news, I am starting a sex worker support group through SWOC and my work. I am stoked about it! I have had some interesting conversations with various people about it, and I am really excited to have my first one in just over a week. If you’re in the Portland area, 18+, and currently working in the sex industry, feel free to get in touch if you’d like to attend.

This is Belle Knox’s most recent article; it’s fabulous. I love the term “whorearchy.” The sentiments she discusses are spot-on and exactly what I’ve felt the past couple years working in the industry myself. It’s also something I am wary of as I begin the support group: I want to make sure workers of all stripes feel included and respected within the group. Ideally I want the group to be a space of understanding and solidarity. Hopefully that’s what it becomes.

Politics of Respectability

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About the politics of respectability, and how having an education and other successes in life clouds our other, more taboo, experiences, despite their worthiness and depth in our lives:

The Erasure of Maya Angelou’s Sex Work History

Or, how the politics of respectability makes our collective experiences look crazy, strange, or shameful:

Stripper with a PhD

The politics of respectability are those that I have tried countless times to discuss on here in relation to my own struggle as both a lover of school and education and desire to work in the mainstream, and a lover of the strip club stage. How can I be both? Perhaps I am neither? Am I a feminist? Or not? Perhaps both? Am I a slut? How complex can I be and still be accepted? How complex can I be and still love myself? Can I respect myself and be everything that I am? Will others respect be despite, and hopefully because of, everything I am?

Thank you Maya

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I love this Maya Angelou poem. I especially love the line about diamonds, as it reminds me of my bedazzled g-string I wear at the club. And, I deeply love the strength, resilience, and power she describes. May we all rise despite adversity, showing ourselves and others what true strength looks like.

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

 

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

 

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

 

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

 

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

 

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

 

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Sex Worker/Social Worker

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Somehow I missed the publication of the roundtable I participated in for Tits and Sass. Here it is:

Sex Worker/Social Worker: An Ethics Roundtable

I am floored and humbled and motivated reading (and re-reading) the other workers’ experiences with school and sex work. There are so many rich and complex stories here. So much insight, pride, solidarity, and action. I love it.

And thanks to T&A for including me!

DV, Sex Addiction, & Sexy Sex

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I was listening to a survivor yesterday talk about her experiences, and near the end of our conversation she mentioned that something that was not covered by the survey I had her fill out was the fact that she felt abused by her ex-husband’s sex addiction. She mentioned that she never spent money on herself because so much of their money was spent on lingerie models and 1-900 numbers and possibly “illegal things” (aka prostitutes?). She said it was one of their long-standing battles, and that it was abusive not just because of the financial impact but because it also made her feel “not good enough.”

This was a complex issue for me to listen to and digest.

1. You always believe a survivor. That’s trauma-informed and survivor-informed. If she felt abused by her ex’s sexual proclivities, then I believe her.

2. I don’t believe “sex addiction” is a thing. However, if someone told me they felt “addicted” to sex, then I would believe them. I do think people are the experts on their own lives. Again, though, I don’t think it’s quite the right word to describe a behavior pattern related to seeking out sex/sexual experiences.

3. I wonder about many of the men I have met and danced for at my club. How many of them have wives at home who hate the fact that they patronize strip clubs and spend money on strippers? How many of them have a different persona at the club versus when they are home with their families? How many abusers have I danced for?

4. She asked me how and why I got into domestic violence work, and I answered the best I could. I mentioned that the spectrum of sexuality was my passion, from education to intervention. Listening to her, though, I was reminded of how bummed out I can feel when I realize so many people see sexuality as something to be tightly controlled, and how constricted people can get from being inundated with messages related to monogamy and purity. I would love to do more prevention work.

5. This woman was a Christian and made several comments that led me to believe that even though she knew her ex was “bad news” from the beginning, it took her 25 years to divorce him because she didn’t think divorce was okay. She also talked with me a bunch about how her goal was to break the cycle of poverty with her kids, and that it didn’t look like it was going to happen. I was reminded of my mom and how my mom did manage to break that cycle for herself and her kids- and it made me think of research on why certain people are able to do certain things that others from their peer group struggle to do (Malcom-Gladwell-like research).

I have been processing that 2 1/2 hour long meeting since yesterday, and I’m still chewing on it. I’m still a little hung up on the sex addiction/sex worker piece of it. It also reminded of this piece (“Sex Criminals 2013“) on “Tits and Sass” from the other day, and this particular passage:

“And you put her with a guy like Jon, who spent his adolescence taking in all the free porn he could get, and of course you have this near-couple who wind up using porn as a way to segue into sex. These are the exact couples I see every Saturday at my club—where the woman looks uncomfortable and the guy doesn’t want to seem too interested in any of the dancers because he doesn’t want to make her jealous, so they hang back, refusing to engage with you, and refusing to pay. Because to them, sex workers aren’t real people. If they admitted we were real people working to give them  a fantasy, then they would have to admit they are using other people to spice up their sex lives without, you know, paying us or acknowledging the fact that we are working, as opposed to acting sexual purely for the fun of it. It’s a selfish thing that’s incredibly easy to do, especially to porn actors, who are extra removed from reality by way of always interacting with the viewer through a screen or a photo. And that is exactly why Suzi can’t listen to Jazmine defend herself. Because, in a way, Suzi needs Jazmine to be sexualized just as much as Jon does. If the sex worker becomes real, then you’re going to have to admit that there’s a person that you’re harming with your negative opinions of them, and why would you want to do that?”

Thanks for reading my convoluted post 🙂

To wrap it up, I just need to celebrate the fact that I got laid last night!!!! (This whole job/home buying/moving process has really taken the wind out of our sails the past two weeks) So- I slept really well last night and feel really good this morning. Let’s hear it for SEX!! 😀

Confessions of a Working Girl

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I finished this memoir this past weekend, and it was overall a good read. Not super well written, but the content was full of interesting and entertaining bits. I love sex work memoirs and this one definitely filled the need of mine to read a good one. So, thank you Miss S for sharing your story!

I started my new job today, and it didn’t take long to have an interesting conversation with my supervisor about strippers and sex work. No one at my new job knows about my dancing experience, so having this conversation was weird for me. I was talking with all of this authority and insight, but had zero intentions of explaining how I could. My supervisor wanted to know what I thought about the difference between sex trafficking and sex work was, and whether sex work in which a woman has a “pimp” could still be empowering and free of violence.

Here are some various comments from the both of us (I don’t remember the entire conversation or flow, but thought they might be interesting to share nonetheless):

My supervisor: “My daughter came home and was sort of processing the fact that she has a lot of friends who are dancers. She was particularly worried about one who was sort of going down a path toward prostitution.”

Me: “I think sex work probably falls along a continuum. It’s very gray. There could be one woman who has a pimp and finds a lot of benefits to it, while another could feel extremely controlled and manipulated and stuck working at a brothel with a madam.”

Me: “Sex trafficking is different than sex workers who choose to profit from sex in some way.”

My supervisor: “Yeah, what about a woman whose partner doesn’t let her work and doesn’t give her any money [constituting financial abuse] and forces her to have sex? Is this sex trafficking?”

I am so excited to be working in another open-minded and social justice oriented program, and one in which I will still be able to be involved with our local sex worker outreach coalition (now professionally instead of in a volunteer role!) More to come I am sure 🙂

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