Sex work is a game of risk, repeated outings and marginalisation

Sex work is a game of risk, repeated outings and marginalisation
Image: Sex Worker Advocate Jane Green from the Scarlet Alliance
Sex Worker Advocate Jane Green from the Scarlet Alliance
Sex Worker Advocate Jane Green from the Scarlet Alliance

ON World AIDS Day, I was at Government House in Melbourne mentoring someone in the art of bugging strangers for their help. I do this a lot. Approach strangers and ask for help, that is. I am an activist, so I routinely lobby politicians and other useful bystanders. But as a queer sex worker, I am always on the outside asking to get in.

The discrimination I face, both because of my work and as an activist, are compounded in complex ways by the fact that I am both queer and a sex worker. Yet each is distinctly different and cannot be compared. Queer and sex work communities are diverse and no-one should attempt to speak to collective experience – I speak to my lived experience only.

“So what do you do?”

That’s a standard question when you meet people, usually one of the first asked. Every time I am asked this, I have to choose between lying (which I don’t like), or telling the truth and dealing with the aftermath.

It’s called “sex work 101”. Sometimes it’s actually okay, other times it’s boring. It can be so frustrating it takes me hours to wind down, and sometimes – unfortunately – it’s violent. I also get asked to lie. Asked to lie about what I do by friends when I am going to their birthday parties and weddings. Asked to lie about both my queer identity and sex work by one family member, while another strongly disagrees with my choice of work they tell people I am deceased. I get asked and can’t be bothered explaining. I get asked and (occasionally) explain in detail… And every time someone asks there’s that choice.

When people know I am a sex worker, I get hate. Yes, hate. Telling people the truth about being a sex worker is a little like a lottery – but every now and then you get someone that feels they have the right to tell you that you don’t have a right to exist. That sex workers’ right to work should be abolished. That is the position of both conservative politicians and radical feminists – an unholy alliance. Radical feminists believe that sex workers suffer from false consciousness – that I don’t know my own mind and lack the ability to consent to sex work, which considering I’ve been able to consent for a while now, I find pretty offensive. Also, this is a position that compromises the bodily autonomy and agency of sex workers – who are conceptualised in radical feminist theory as all-female and rendering male and trans sex workers invisible. This isn’t just a “difference of opinion”. This is hate speech.

Speaking of invisible, as a sex worker, my queer identity is constantly questioned. Persistently. Pretty much by anyone that I come in contact with that finds out that I am both queer and a sex worker. Questions like:

“How does that work?”

“If you have sex with men for money how can you be gay?”

“Don’t you get grossed out?”

“Do you ever get turned on?”

“If you get turned on, how can you be gay?”

“So you must actually be bi, right?”

“I could never date a sex worker, it must be hard finding a partner?”

“I could never do what you do…”

To start with, it’s work. I maintain boundaries between private life and work. My sexual identity and my working life do have points of interaction (obviously), but neither of them obscure or overwrite the other (if you want me to explain further – book me).

I also see female clients and couples (no, this doesn’t make me polyamorous). And yes, I am grossed out mainly by people who think they have a right to ask intrusive questions about my sexual identity and/or work.

Yes, I do get turned and no, I am not bi.

Dating hasn’t been a problem, ever – people find the idea of someone who has spent a significant time honing the erotic arts attractive. (Who knew?) And you might not be any good at it, but you could try.

When I’m not invisible, I am being outed against my will through forced STI and HIV testing. Current laws in Victoria mandate the monitoring and criminalisation of sex workers, even though sex workers have lower rates of STIs and HIV than the general population, and have higher compliance with condom use. Government-mandated health checks are offensive and demoralising to Victorian sex workers. The most regular unwelcome contact I have is when I am forced to be examined by someone (a doctor) who – because they know I am a sex worker – is able to make whatever bigoted comments they like, and I, needing my certificate to be allowed to work will (usually) shut up and take it.

At the World AIDS Day event I listened to Victorian Health Minister David Davis talk about the need for “promoting environments and settings that support people disclosing their HIV status”. Meanwhile UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador Aung San Suu Kyi spoke about discrimination, stating it was “not acceptable in a civilised world”.

Laws for sexual conduct should be the same for all members of the community – not applied according to any discriminatory characteristic. Kane Mathews, an out sex worker living with HIV and former president of Scarlet Alliance, argues that “the presence of money does not affect HIV transmission”. Rather obviously, laws criminalising those that are HIV positive do not support the disclosure of HIV status, this affects sex workers. Laws in Victoria that criminalise sex workers living with HIV go against the currently-stated goals of both the Victorian Health Minister and UNAIDS.

Going into 2014 as a queer sex worker, and looking towards events such as AIDS 2014 in Melbourne that impact so profoundly on both communities I inhabit, it would be better if belonging to both of these communities at once didn’t compound ongoing discrimination, and instead made potential contributions to such events more, rather than less possible.

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24 responses to “Sex work is a game of risk, repeated outings and marginalisation”

  1. RE: “Radical feminists believe that sex workers suffer from false consciousness…”

    What sex workers actually suffer from; is happiness. Prostitution is a life of misery. My life is one million times better now I left the industry.

    I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution. The workers may enjoy aspects of the job like; the immediacy of the money, the feelings of being desired and powerful however the work itself is humiliating and gradually eats away ones essence. There are emotional challenges to deal with whilst working and post-prostitution, such as intimacy and attachment issues.

    Working in sex work is existing however it’s not truly living. Once I (finally) got the courage to leave sex work, my whole world opened up: I found the love of my life, the career of my dreams (writing) and I wouldn’t want to wish that world on anyone.

    • Everyone speaks from their own lived experience as Jane clearly states in her article and sex work like any other job is not suited to everyone.
      I am sorry that Greena experienced sex work as a negative experience and am truly happy that they now have a better life.
      But that doesnt justify a statement that “I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution”. Lots of us love our jobs as sex workers and would strongly reject the arguement that we are deluded by money, desire and power (WTF; its just a job after all)
      To anyone who does sex work and is experencing issues such as the ones Greena describes having had whilst sex working there are sex worker organisations in every state of Australia staffed by sex workers who offer support, advice and counselling to all sex workers. You can call Scarlet Alliance, the national peak sex worker body on 02-9690-0551 for the name of your local sex worker organisation. In NSW this is SWOP NSW 02-9206-2166

      • Hi everyone,

        RE: Cameron Cox’s comment: ‘But that doesnt justify a statement that “I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution”. ‘

        I worked in prostitution for 19 years. I met thousands of female sex workers over the years, in three different countries. I never ever met even one woman who truly enjoyed their work. Everyone was trying to get out of the industry.
        I feel that my extensive experience in the industry therefore does qualify me to justify the statement (and belief); “I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution”.

        RE: Cameron Cox stating: ‘there are sex worker organisations in every state of Australia staffed by sex workers who offer support, advice and counselling to all sex workers.’
        Yes, there are. And for an industry to even have such an extensive support, advisory and counselling service clearly shows that there are inherent problems doing the work itself for there to be any demand or necessity for such services.

        Thank you Cameron for your kind words; ‘and am truly happy that they now have a better life’. I wish you much happiness too.

        http://www.geenaleigh.com
        @GeenaAuthor

        • Geena, you do not speak for the thousands of workers. You are at odds with your own self. Do not take the moral high ground now that you do not work. OAU educated yourself through the sex industry. By you advocating the criminalisation of third parties and buyers, you in effect are supporting more discrimination from society to working ladies and supporting a movement that in effect is only using you for their own religious agenda.

      • Hi everyone,

        RE: Cameron Cox’s comment: ‘But that doesnt justify a statement that “I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution”. ‘

        I worked in prostitution for 19 years. I met thousands of female sex workers over the years, in three different countries. I never ever met even one woman who truly enjoyed their work. Everyone was trying to get out of the industry.
        I feel that my extensive experience in the industry therefore does qualify me to justify the statement (and belief); “I do not believe that any woman truly wants to work in prostitution”.

        RE: Cameron Cox stating: ‘there are sex worker organisations in every state of Australia staffed by sex workers who offer support, advice and counselling to all sex workers.’
        Yes, there are. And for an industry to even have such an extensive support, advisory and counselling service clearly shows that there are inherent problems doing the work itself for there to be any demand or necessity for such services.

        Thank you Cameron for your kind words; ‘and am truly happy that they now have a better life’. I wish you much happiness too.

        • That’s funny , Geena – I have had completely OPPOSITE experience than you have. I’ve met many sex workers that were quite happy with their jobs.

          The reason why there are so many “support” services are that there is much money to be made off the backs of sex workers by placing oneself as the “saviors “. That money should be going to funding sex worker peer group so that workers themselves can say what they need and want for themselves.

        • I’ve been in sex work for a decade. That means I speak for all sex workers whether I know them or not and whether they want me to or not.

          That’s an example of a non sequitur. Latin for ‘it does not follow’.

        • It seems to me that what you are after is publicity for your book, Geena. While you throw sex workers and other marginalized groups under the bus to sell your own story.

          • Also I was a drug user in my straight jobs too. Funny how that’s not considered a sign they were abusive. Even tho I was physically abused in my professional job and never in any of my sw ones

        • There are inherent problems in capitalism per se. The ones that are specific to sex work stem from criminalisation and stigmatisation and tend to be ameliorated when whorephobia (incl the internalised kind) is. I speak from firsthand experience here, as someone who found full service traumatic at first and then not at all after I vanquished my internalised stigma.

        • I have worked in the industry over 30 years and in many different countries and though I am a male worker I know lots of female (and many trans) workers and I have at times worked in female parlours. I literally hundreds of women who truly enjoy their jobs as sex workers and I notice a few have commented here.

          So I repeat, no one person’s experience can be used to justify such a definitive statement as no “woman truly wants to work in prostitution” in a huge and diverse industry.

          With regard to sex worker health and advocacy organisations; these are health and advocacy organisations. They give support and information on safe sex and they advocate for sex work law reform and anti-discrimination protection for sex workers. Much of the support work done by these organisations is a by-product of the impingement of criminalisation, regulation, stigma and discrimination on sex workers and their work.

    • So, you know the lives and thoughts of an entire industry of complete strangers better than they know their own? And these people all – without knowing you exist – appointed you their representative? What a load.

    • Also labor rights don’t rest on a foundation of worker fee fees. If they did hospitality would be a ghost town. Strangely enough, though, this irrelevant criterion isn’t applied to worker organising in any other industry. Just the dirty sex workers. Cos sex is dirty, see. Patriarchy and real feminism agree: it taints women but somehow strengthens men.

    • Who gives you the moral authority to say it is evil? Normatively speaking if it stops someone and their children from being destitute then It is not morally impermissible. Who is your buffer now? How did it eat your essence when you used it to fund your transition? Values evolve but the character never changes.

  2. this article irritates me. why write an article if you don’t like people asking questions about it, why be an activist if you dont like telling the truth, infact why be a sex worker at all if you dont like talking about it. It seems she could just make her life alot easier by getting a different job. But then I suppose she wouldn’t have anything to complain about.

    • This comment irritates me. Why read and remark on an article if you don’t like having your ignorance challenged, in fact why read anything at all if you don’t like learning? Seems to me you could just make your life a lot easier by switching your computer or smartphone off. But then I suppose you wouldn’t have anything to complain about.

  3. Excellent article, thank you Jane, I just wish the rest of society could accept that sex work is just that…’work’ and leave their morbid curiosity at the door…as an activist you are an amazing human being and would want you in my corner any day xxx

  4. Had to look it up “Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance” For example “Craig who is threatened by sex and sexuality reads that Jane is comfortable with both. Craig cannot conceive that he is abnormal so it must be Jane” or Tess who decides Jane is deliberately upsetting her world view so to re adjust the balance she needs to believe Jane must be just a one-off and is therefore able to dismiss her experiences…Is that about it?

  5. I’m straight for pay too. Men are for the fundzone – I rarely find them sexually attractive. There is absolutely no cognitive dissonance doing sex work, even tho I often get turned on while working as well.

    You know why that is? It’s because sex work IS WORK. It’s about providing a sexual service and experience geared towards the CLIENT’S enjoyment. It is a SERVICE PROVISION that for us is everything to do with money and nothing to do with sexual desire, despite at times being physically enjoyable too. I guess that’s why they call it transactional sex hey? Because it absolutely strictly is a transaction.

    My private sex life is different. It is much more mutual and has desire rather than money at its core. I’m primarily rather than strictly gay, which in practice means I might fancy a femme boy every few years but the rest of the time it’s femme girls. See how this is about what I FANCY? Not about offering a service so as to earn a fee? Yeah that.

  6. Jane is deliberately confusing the argument by crossing her sexuality with her sex work.

    Sorry Jane but your views are not shared by most of your co-workers.

  7. Great article Jane – articulate, clear and beautifully grounded in your own lived experience – which no-one can argue with.

    Years ago I did some work alongside the then leaders of Scarlet Alliance, some of whom were queer, and like you they were also impressive advocates and amazing people.

  8. Wonderful article Jane. Discrimination and hate speech are apparently acceptable when your work, sexuality, your very self, doesn’t conform to what a queer woman “should” do from a rad fem perspective. Discussion that fails to acknowledge the Agency of women and their capability for choice mirrors the oppressive discourse of the patriarchy. Hypocrisy of the worst kind.

  9. Oh, I see- Jane is ‘straight for pay’, rather like straight males who engage in male sex work targeted at the gay male market segment or gay porn who are ‘gay for pay.’ I suppose my question for Jane is, given that, does she ever experience cognitive dissonance in the course of her job? And what about paid sex with female clients?

    • Great article Jane and thank you Craig NZ for your comment which is such a great example of prejudice and discrimination that exists against queer sex workers that Jane discusses