Sex Work

by Frédérique Delacoste

  I wrote about two cops illegally trying to set me up for a felony by showing me a wallet full of hundreds and then leaving me alone in a room with it. I wrote about the same cops trying to recruit me for a brothel where they would get a commission, and also about their bragging to me about other hookers they had beaten up. I wrote about tricks trying to kill me and pimps trying to sweet talk me and threaten me. I wrote that when judges and cops deal with hookers, they drop the chivalry and the phony, overdone sexuality men pretend to, and instead make loud jokes about the women to punish them for having had so much sex.

  When I finished reading these pieces, the women either changed the subject, were completely silent or laughed. Although they showed no sympathy when I talked about men trying to kill me, they became very sympathetic when other women talked about car repair bills, or broken xerox machines at work.

  When I was in a crummy New York hotel, I remember overhearing the police discussing the death of a hooker with the hotel manager. All three men were laughing, and making jokes about the parts of her body that had been found in garbage cans. I also remember the first week I got to California, and reading a front page news story about a blonde Berkeley co-ed who was killed. She was in the news for nearly a week, although the hooker’s death, of course, got no news coverage at all.

  I can’t help but feel that when feminists laugh or change the subject when I talk about experiences that nearly killed me, they are reflecting society’s feelings that hookers’ deaths — and lives — are unimportant.

  There were eighty-one hookers and possible hookers murdered in the Seattle area between 1983 and 1986, and I think the chances are good you’ve never read about it in the newspaper. Right now, as you’re reading this, some runaway may be standing in a bus depot, being recruited by a pimp. Runaways who end up as street walkers are not expected to live more than three years, according to Trudee Able-Peterson, author of Children of the Evening.

  When I tell other women these stories, they usually respond with silence, and when I try to talk to men, it can be even worse. I once had a boyfriend who felt his penis was too small, and he was upset and jealous when I told him a man with an elephant penis told me he had killed women with it and he wanted to kill me with it, too. “Gee,” he whined, in his envious little boy’s voice, “If you met a guy with a dick that big, what chance do I have of impressing you?” It didn’t, of course, ever occur to him to sympathize with me or to comfort me because I had once been someone whose life was considered so worthless that men often tried to kill me.

  * * *

  Some people believe that at one time women’s bodies were considered sacred, because they are the origin of human life. I believe that if we women didn’t repress our psychic and sexual energies — so much stronger than men’s — we might live in such a different world it’d be hard for us to recognize.

  We live in a culture that worships death through war, through an economic system that keeps most people starving while a small percentage of people focus on expensive drugs like cocaine and on sex with strangers. We live in a culture that encourages people to be shallow and soulless, or to focus on possessions and repressing others and themselves. Sex in this culture often takes the form of prostitution — on a person turning off her emotions, being psychically someplace else while someone who despises her is making love to her.

  Maybe someday we’ll live in a world that doesn’t require prostitution. Maybe the rushes of orgasms some female dowsers feel while getting into trance states won’t be considered abnormal, even though only women can do it. Maybe someday women won’t become housewives, and sit in square houses on square blocks, watching square boxes with pictures of men killing each other. Maybe instead, seeing auras will be common, and talking to plants and animals will be easy. Maybe someday heterosexual sex won’t be considered something that a woman does for a man in exchange for money, dinner and wine, or a lifetime job as a housewife. Maybe someday we’ll all treat each other with respect and dignity.

  One for Ripley’s

  Phyllis Luman Metal

  Well, my dear, I must admit your story seems somewhat unusual. . .quite unusual as a matter of fact. I would never imagine a woman would begin being a prostitute at the age of fifty-five. I think that’s one for Ripley’s, if you don’t mind my saying so. I guess I thought of prostitution as something unfortunate young girls got talked into by unscrupulous men. That was my impression. But to get into it at that age and of your own free will, although it does seem there was some financial pressure. . . Still, there must have been something else you could have done. Tell me, what did you feel about it? Were you overwhelmed by guilt?

  No, I was not. It was a hell of a lot better than marriage. And I tried that five times.

  Well, I just don’t understand. You seem quite normal. You are an attractive woman, of good family, well brought up. The men you married must have been monsters. But five of them? Something just does not fit.

  Well... I found it very liberating to be a prostitute, and the men must have found it liberating too, for they were much better lovers than my husbands. They seemed to feel free with me and I with them. Why are you so upset? You don’t think sex is wrong do you?

  Well, no, I don’t think sex is wrong between two consenting adults.

  You don’t think it’s wrong to earn a living, for a woman to earn a living that is?

  Why no my dear, of course not. Women have jobs now, all sorts of jobs, married or unmarried.

  Well then, why is it wrong to get paid for sex? You must be getting upset about putting the two together.

  It would be like selling your organs. Some part of your body.

  Well, what about selling blood? That doesn’t seem to bother you.

  Well, that is to save lives.

  True, but you would be amazed at how desperate some of the men are to have sex in the way they need to have sex, and how uptight they are about telling their wives what they need. And then there are always the guys who are between relationships, or can’t seem to get anything going.

  Well, my dear, the whole subject is quite confusing. Why don’t we just go to a hotel and have some relaxation.

  Are you willing to pay me?

  Well now, we are good friends. You wouldn’t charge me would you?

  Do you treat your patients who are your friends for nothing? My body is my source of livelihood. I have upkeep to be available and appealing.

  I just wouldn’t feel right about paying you. It would spoil it for me. I think you should give it to me.

  Sorry. We can be good friends but forget the sex then. When I first charged for it, I had much more self respect and self worth than I ever had before. I felt appreciated. When I was a wife I was expected to do a lot of shit work and service my husbands and their desire, not mine. I felt used and abused. No trick ever broke my ribs like my husband did. No trick ever took all my money and left me when it was all gone — another husband did that. No trick ever urged me to neglect my children to accommodate him. No trick ever threw a bunch of in-laws who made my life miserable at me. No trick ever came home drunk every night like one of my husbands did. And I always had money, which I did not when I was married. And I never got a venereal disease. And something else. I got to know people of all nationalities in a way I never could have otherwise. My customers in Paris were from all nations. They were Swiss, British, German, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, French, Syrian, Berber, Algerian, Sengalese, Saudi, Iranian, Japanese. I felt like a citizen of the world. Prostitution made me feel that all of us on the planet were one family.

  Well, my dear, it is all very interesting. But I am sure you are an anomaly. I can’t believe this is how it usually goes. There is something wrong about it. What would happen to the family if it were legal?

  I think it is much more prevalent and accepted in Catholic countries where the family is much stronger than here.

  Well, my dear, let’s have a drink and talk about something else. There are so many other aspects to
you. You have such a varied life. This surely isn’t that important to you. Why don’t you just forget about it. Why make an issue of it? I think you just like to take up controversial issues for causes. You just like the role of being a social reformer. What in the world do you have in common with all those girls who stand on corners? They can’t do anything else. Don’t tell me you are a feminist.

  Attitudes

  Sharon Kaiser

  I was watching a talk show a few weeks ago, and they had a panel of four they were interviewing, and one of the women on the panel was a prostitute. The show’s host was soliciting questions from the audience.

  The audience questions centered around why this woman was a prostitute. Her response was that she liked it, that she saw it as therapeutic, and of value in this society.

  During this question and answer sequence the camera cut back and forth from the prostitute to the audience. Every time it cut to the audience, it focused in on one woman sitting in the aisle. I remember thinking that she was very beautiful, and well-dressed, like she had money. She looked educated, and as though she had come from a good, loving home. That sort of all-American sparkle look.

  At one point she made a comment under her breath, and the show’s host picked it up and asked her to repeat it over the mike. I don’t remember what she said, but she began this hostile attack on the prostitute. Soon, others began attacking the prostitute too. The first woman came up to the mike and said something about a whore only being able to think between her legs.

  I remember feeling this helpless, surging rage. I wanted to cry. It never seems to matter how long I’ve lived with the stigma of being a prostitute or being a lesbian, or being something someone didn’t think I should be. I can’t seem to get used to being treated as though I am less than human. I don’t think I ever will. It’s always a shock to me.

  The Continuing Saga of Scarlot Harlot VII

  Carol Leigh

  Well, here I am again. The Whore. I admit it.

  Oh, no. This can’t be, you think. Not an actual, real-live prostitute spilling the beans? Isn’t that dangerous? Won’t she be arrested? What if her mother finds out?

  And dangerous it is. Yet I forsake my well-being in an effort to satisfy your overwhelming curiosity about what prostitution looks like from the inside out.

  Besides, I’m proud. Sex work is nurturing, healing work. It could be considered a high calling. Prostitutes are great women, veritable priestesses. Maybe that’s an exaggeration.

  “Prostitutes always glorify their work,” says X. “They have to glorify it or they couldn’t stand to do it.”

  X is an ex-prostitute. Ex-prostitutes are out of touch with the true glories of the trade. Plus, they were never very good at it. That’s why they’re ex-prostitutes. But I suppose everyone has their prejudices.

  And so I strive to sift these complexities, to seek and present The Truth. Naturally, I’ve been barraged with letters from the curious masses. I’ve edited their substance to the quintessential. For instance:

  Dear Scarlot:

  Is it true that women made prostitution illegal? You said so once.

  — Doubtful

  Dear Doubtful,

  No. I was over-reacting. I exaggerated. I guess I’m just angry at everyone. But some women helped.

  Dear Harlot,

  Is anything you say true?

  — Just Wondering

  Dear Wondering,

  Yes.

  Dear Whore,

  Me and my friends never even think about prostitution. You shouldn’t assume everyone is curious. By the way, what is truth?

  — Socrates

  New York City Tonight

  Sapphire

  1.

  I’m talkin’ about

  a sickness

  inside

  A feelin’ I can

  no longer

  hide

  I’ve gone the

  way of

  serpents

  an can no

  longer find

  my way home

  2.

  I need the

  wisdom of the

  ancients

  The sight of

  the soothsayers

  The salve of

  blues

  A spiritual cathartic

  or

  I will strangle

  in my own

  filth

  I will be but

  a parody

  of a woman

  livin’ a death

  and life

  that ends

  with me,

  with an aversion

  to pain

  that only allows for

  a shallow

  mediocrity; not

  havin’ the courage

  to move past

  old hurts I

  remain bound in a

  Peter Pan pubescence

  And I am at once lost

  and found unsure

  of what is mine,

  what is creation or

  imitation, forward or

  backward

  I have lost sight

  of the Blk. Will

  the seventies be

  the times of

  the Blind

  Groping lost where is the vision?

  All I see is the

  crackers wasteland

  a toilet left

  unflushed

  Malcolm! And I’m a thousand years

  behind the times

  Nothin’ has changed

  ten years ago today I was

  trickin’ in L. A. now

  I’m in New York and

  I repeat nothin’

  has changed!

  I can’t find my dreams

  I don’t know what

  nothin’ means.

  I am alone. So ashamed

  I keep goin’ but

  want to come

  home.

  3.

  Across the aisle from

  me on the subway

  a nigger in pink

  jeans reads Ebony

  magazine his

  hair pressed and

  curled

  Elijah why did you leave us

  All I think of is gigs

  costumes, gettin’ slim, tryin’ to MAKE

  IT actin’, dancin’, maybe a play

  on Broadway like Zaki

  All the while the race

  among the races is

  at a crucial point

  the survival of my people

  is at stake

  and I have elected

  to spend my days

  in petty pursuit

  of pieces of the

  pie. The shit

  pie. I

  am sick. I don’t know

  what it will take

  to get me

  well. Malcolm is not goin’ to rise

  again. Panthers played out. Elijah is dead.

  Processes is back. I can’t talk about nobodi cause

  I wear wigs. I can’t write warrior poems talkin’

  bout clean up the community cause I would

  have to wash myself away. I am

  part of the perversion that

  permeates our

  existence

  Blk children can

  pass by taverns

  and see me

  on a platform

  g-stringed and gyratin’, hear me

  cursin’ on subways

  and street corners

  see me wid wite boys

  and women.

  I repeat

  I am sick

  and do not know

  what to do about

  it. I have

  come from the sixties to the

  seventies. From being

  the solution to

  being the

  problem.

  They should stone me/US

  I did not get this way ALONE.

  I am a product of

  humiliations,
drowned dreams

  and betrayals. It is

  not all the time what

  it seems. I tried/

  tryin’ and am still

  gettin’ up

  I know in the end it will be better

  than it was an’ I

  cannot berate myself

  cause of limited

  survival mechanisms

  I am gettin’ up

  and gettin’ on

  Comin’ home!

  and don’t

  want no static

  bout where

  I been. I’m

  comin’ HOME an’

  like the bible say

  ‘let he who is

  without sin

  cast the first

  stone’

  I got to move past old ways

  sometimes I jus’ don’t know how —

  I could be doin’ better

  but I could be doin’

  worse

  I have heard of those

  who walk the way

  of the new world. I don’t

  know how I came to always

  be on the outside

  lookin’ in. Enlightened ones

  do not leave us. Oh robe

  wearin’/Blk talkin’/knowledgeable

  ones love us be

  like my grandmother

  whose prayers have

  endured past all things

  when the dancers stopped dancin’

  poets stopped poetin’

  men stopped Iovin’

  her prayers endured

  I remember her when

  ideologies, Kings and

  other things had let

  me down and if you

  can be like she

  and never turn

  your back on

  your children

  She said, ‘go grow but don’t

  forget you can/must always

  come home.’

  4.

  I have much

  good to give

  But don’t feel

  I have long

  to live

  5.

  changes pain

  6.

  On the subway

  home

  people look at u

  like u crazy

  Black mutherfuckers!

  I was with a trick

  last night

  Oh god! ain’t no use

  me even talkin’ about it

  cause u can’t know ‘less u