SerpentLibertine

Sex Worker, Activist, Antagonistic Sympathizer

We’re never short on political scandals here in Illinois and it didn’t take long after this last election-the next day, to be exact- for this latest one to blow up involving the newly elected Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Scott Lee Cohen (In Illinois, Governor and Lt. Governor run completely separate from one another). Turns out Cohen was arrested several years back for holding a knife to an ex-girlfriend’s throat, a fact he was open about during the campaign process, but apparently nobody paid any attention to it until he won the primary. Thanks for keeping the voters informed, media. You fucking suck, as always. Of course the kicker here is that said girlfriend in Cohen’s case was convicted on a prostitution charge in 2005 at the “Eden Spa”, the same place Cohen met her. He says he didn’t know she had been convicted of prostitution, others are saying the place was well-known for prostitution. The media, of course, are saying all sorts of stupid shit, as well as posting this poor woman’s mugshot on the cover of the paper with words like “hooker” and “convicted prostitute” in the headlines, leaving us to wonder who exactly is running for office here.

The Republicans are secretly thanking you, fucker

Now, this Scott Lee Cohen guy does seem like a grade-A douchebag, but part of me kinda believes him when he says he didn’t know his girlfriend was a “prostitute.” She probably wasn’t, but you also have to realize a lot of us keep secrets, even from loved ones and family. She probably was giving “straight massages”, as he thought, at the Spa but every so often if a client came in and offered the right amount of money, he would get a happy ending. It happens all the time. Suburban cops, who have nothing better to do with their time, thought it would be a fun to set up a sting on said massage spa and trick some cute girl into agreeing to give him a hand job with his regular massage. As bad as that situation was for her, I’m sure she never thought that 5 years later her ex-boyfriend would be running for political office and she’d have to re-live this hell all over again, with the media digging for details of her personal life, even though she’s not running for office herself or even still dating this guy. Apparently she’s still employed at the same spa (in a different location) and now she’s got nosy Tribune reporters showing up at her workplace trying to make appointments with her to see if they can get a “happy ending” too. Her livelihood and income is probably now at serious risk, as well as any future employment opportunites. And let’s remember here, she was originally the victim in this case.

I don’t know this woman involved in the scandal but I can imagine that she had friends  and family that had no idea of her life or her arrest and now it’s front page news for the world to see. It scares the hell out of me because this very well could be myself or one of my industry friends in the exact same situation. One of our ex-clients or ex-boyfriends decides to run for office or has a high profile job and next thing you know, it’s us being thrown into the spotlight even though we did nothing to put ourselves there. How do you move forward when you’ve been disrespected by the media in this way? Remember Ashley DuPre, the escort is the Elliot Spitzer scandal? She’s now writing for the NY Post, one of the many media outlets that disrespected her during that scandal. Not exactly the wisest career moved in my opinion, but I’m sure she figured if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

While members of the Illinois Democratic party are pressuring Cohen to step down, perhaps some good might come out of this scandal. Perhaps people will come to the realization that A) sex workers are everywhere and let’s get over the “oh my God, that’s awful!” fucking hysteria surrounding this type of work, B) Just because someone agreed to give an undercover cop a hand job at a spa once doesn’t mean she is a “prostitute.” It means she was set up, and lastly C) People should be outraged that their tax dollars are being spent on undercover “prostitution” stings at massage spas. Really people…isn’t this what the news outlets should be reporting on? The fact that precious Illinois tax dollars are being wasted on what hardly amounts to a crime? But no, now the focus has shifted away from Cohen, who’s done things much worse that what this woman did and on her, just so they can throw around words like “hooker” and “prostitute” instead of “domestic abuser” and  “tax cheat” in the name of selling papers.

There really is no happy ending here, for anyone involved. Cohen will hopefully resign, the scandal will blow over in a week or so, but this woman’s reputation has been damaged forever. And you can sure as shit guarantee that come November we’re going to have a Republican elected governor of Illinois.

Well, looky here. I finally got rid of that crappy old Blogger blog and moved my shit over to Wordpress. Well, almost all of it. Seems that my comments didn’t quite import with the rest of the blog posts, so here I am feeling pretty unpopular. So leave me some comments. Or re-post your old ones!  If you’re really curious, check out the comments on this old version of my blog. Haven’t exactly closed the book on this matter yet, so perhaps there’s hope that the comments may someday turn up, but I’m not holding out for a miracle.

The good news is I’ve updated the links and added a lot more blogs and resources. (If I’m missing any links please let me know and I will add them.) The blog looks a lot bigger and better. The bad news is that I’m still a lazy blogger.

Much thanks to D for his help and patience in getting all this imported and whatnot. Couldn’t have done it without you. Really.

Just a friendly reminder that this year’s Desiree Alliance Conference is happening this year in Las Vegas, July 25-30. If you’re not in the know, the conference is a national convergence of sex workers, activists, and our allies coming together for 3 days of amazing presentations, parties, and organizing. I’ll be heading up the Media Team again at this year’s conference and hopefully I’ll be co-presenting with one of my favorite people in the whole world (come to conference to see why!). The presentation proposal deadline is quickly approaching…March 1…so this is an encouragement to all the sex workers out there to out something together and present! It doesn’t have to be complicated at all, anyone can do it. I got nervous about submitting a presentation for the last conference, but I just wrote a few paragraphs and it was totally good. The theme this year is “Working Sex: Power, Practice, and Politics.”

So start planning for July! It’d be so great to meet everyone there…the last conference in Chicago was a great experience so hopefully this year will be even better!

Desiree Alliance Conference- Call For Proposals

Alright, I’m finally finding a spare moment to sit down and write a blog post after a whirlwind of a week that’s left me bit drained. I’d actually been thinking about doing an entry on a lot of the drama surrounding people in this industry for quite sometime, way before the drama llama reared its ugly head last week upon the release of this article. The resulting shitstorm is starting to leave me feeling a bit uneasy, but more on that later.

My friend David, a porn performer, and I argue all the time about the propensity for drama among sex workers. I try to insist that drama happens frequently among people in all industries, and he fights me off, saying that it’s way more common among those in the sex industry. It makes sense, given the hostility projected upon us by outsiders, those of us who have to lead “double lives”, and a variety of other factors including drug/alcohol abuse and mental illness. In the escort community, which I know the best, you see providers duking it out on the message boards, at parties, in person, on blogs, wherever. Somebody gets their panties in a bunch over some little trivial situation and next thing you know a flame war starts and we’re all supposed to take sides on the issue. Those of us caught in the middle end up in an awkward situation of not knowing the right thing to say or do. It’s happened to all of us before.

That’s not to say that I’m immune to this behavior at all. I readily admit that I’m not. I had a falling out with an industry friend of mine earlier this year because I became friends with a person she disliked and instead of believing the lies she’d told me about him, I chose to make my own decision. The drama llama came out in full force for a little while then and I do have friends that are caught on either sides of the issue. Some of her resulting actions have proven to be so destructive that I’ve chosen not to associate with her ever again, but I respect my friends decisions to stay neutral in the argument. Still, these situations don’t help my argument against David too well.

Perhaps I need to face the truth- yeah, sex workers tend to be full of drama. And I’m sure there’s someone out there saying, “because it’s an industry full of women,” but I think it’s a little more complicated than that. It’s a competitive industry that has serious ups and downs, legal repercussions, possible negative backlash from friends/family, and the lure of fast money that gets spent even faster. People get paranoid and angry and start unleashing their anger on those closest to them…usually their peers or close friends. Of course, as an activist I want to tell people that this kind of temperamental behavior threatens to bring us all down as a community, but let’s face it, people engaging in drama could usually care less about that shit. Still, it hurts. People are already pointing fingers at us and when’s there’s some major drama happening amongst sex workers, people are pointing fingers at us saying “look at the freakshow.”

Which brings me to last weeks drama over the article questioning the identity of escort blogger Alexa DiCarlo. Sorry if I’m a day late and a dollar short on getting my blog response out on this, but I’ve always maintained that I’m not the most prolific blogger. Quite honestly, I prefer to talk to people in person as it takes a lot less time than writing. Anyways…I was approached by Spread magazine editor Monica Shores about doing an interview for an article she was working on about sex worker bloggers. I was never told that the article would be about Alexa, but the last question that she asked about “entirely anonymous bloggers that claim to be prostitutes” tipped me off. I wrote what I honestly felt about the situation and I stand by it. I did also write and am partially quoted in the article as saying, “We have enough problems and issues in this industry to deal with and the last thing we need is another huge controversy.” Aaaaannnddd, that’s what we got. If you haven’t read all the responses to the article yet, do yourself a favor and catch up here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course, here. Woof!

As far as Alexa goes, she seemed like a nice enough person on her twitter feed that genuinely cared about sex worker rights and I’d engaged in twitversations with her from time to time. People have been raising suspicions about her identity for awhile and when she approached SWOP-USA earlier this year about supporting her “Code of Ethics” for sex workers, several people raised concerns about not just the Code but Alexa herself. She was asked to meet with a rep from SWOP before we threw support for anything that she did, and she declined. So no, there was no disorganization on our part; people just thought she was shady. Look, I can understand if someone doesn’t want to hang out with other sex workers, but why go through such trouble to keep your identity hidden? It only makes people think you have something to hide.

I let the Alexa thing go for awhile until myself and several other activists in the community received a letter from someone called “Girl By the Bay” once again questioning the identity of Alexa, stating that she had no escort reviews (hey, it’s possible), linking to the Caitlin’s Corner website, and then linked to this camgirl website in which the girl in the photos was same one in the photos on Alexa’s advertising site, MySpace, and former Facebook profile. Sure, it could’ve been Alexa, but I’d never heard Alexa mention that she did webcam work and the “Blue Eyed Cass” girl seems to reside on the east coast while Alexa lives in SF. The two also have significantly different writing styles. Something wasn’t adding up.

Several of us have been talking about it for awhile, but the question of *who* was going to confront her about it seemed to be somewhat difficult to delegate. So when Monica’s article came out last week, all of a sudden the cat was out of the bag and whomever Alexa is, she seems to be defying her own “Code of Ethics.” I will say that one of the most interesting revelations in the article for me was the identity of Shirley Shave, one of the first bloggers I asked to exchange links with when I started blogging back in 2003. Apparently, I haven’t read Shirley’s blog since March 6, 2006, when “she” revealed that “her” real identity was Henry Baum, a novelist looking to get his book published. Shows how up-to-date I am on all these blogs.

While it’s somewhat a relief that this mystery is now out in the open for discussion, the resulting controversy is getting pretty ugly and perhaps it’s time to reign in the drama llama and direct our attention at more pressing issues facing the sex worker community. After all, it’s the holidays. Let’s direct the shitslinging at the people who deserve it the most…our families!

Every year on December 17, we honor those of us in the sex industry who have fallen victims of violence while on the job. Please join us this year at our event in CHicago or any of the other events going on across the world.

On December 17, 2009 Sex Workers Outreach Project-Chicago will join other sex worker rights organizations all over the world in commemorating the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This date was chosen by Dr. Annie Sprinkle in recognition of the conviction of Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer, a man whose reign of terror over almost twenty years resulted in the known deaths of 48 women. These women, who also happened to be sex workers, were targeted by Ridgway because, in his own words, “I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught”.

Our current laws, enforcement practices and narrow social perceptions create a supportive environment for other Gary Ridgways to exist and thrive. One of our concerns is that sex work is an industry that is often marginalized, dangerous, or criminal. We want to see safety and rights granted to all sex workers – those in the industry by choice as well as those in the industry who want out. SWOP-Chicago invites the community to commemorate this day with us as we remember colleagues lost to violence in the past year, to learn why laws both current and pending increase harm against the sex worker population and what can be done to create a non-violent future where violence against sex workers is an occurrence of the past.

A vigil will be hosted by SWOP-Chicago at the Barbara and Barbara Gallery, located at 1021 N. Western Avenue on Thursday, December 17. The vigil will feature a community art project, a candle lighting ceremony as the names of the victims are read as well as a variety of speakers, readings and performers reflecting the diversity of the sex worker community. We invite current and former sex workers, adult industry performers, or those impacted by the sex trade to come out and speak about their experiences in the industry or bring something to read. Food and snacks provided.

Barbara & Barbara Gallery
1021 N. Western Ave.
Chicago, Illinois
Reception starts at 6:30pm

Event runs until 10 pm

No cover, but beverages available by donation

Well, well. Looks like that huge publicity stunt that Sheriff Tom Dart pulled back in March has finally come to an end. Most of us who were in the know about Craigslist lawsuits knew it would pretty much turn out this way, but that doesn’t stop publicity-seeking politicians from taking aim at the website in their efforts to get their names in the papers. Nonetheless, Dart got what he wanted when the “Erotic Services” section was pulled in May, but things seems to be business as usually in the new “Adult Services” section. Guess he’ll never learn!

This lawsuit caused us a lot of grief when it was originally filed. We had to rush to issue a statement on the day of our benefit party, arrange for someone from our organization to speak on NPR, and basically answer people’s questions left and right. The general public took this suit seriously, we said it was ridiculous. We were right. However, we’re not going to get a blurb in the paper saying, “hey, those sex workers in Chicago know what they’re talking about” anytime soon.

It’s not to say that Dart doesn’t have his admirable qualities. He’s taken a tough stance on dogfighting, a pet cause of mine and a crime that was ignored by law enforcement for a long time until Michael Vick came along. He also stopped enforcing evictions last year as a result of the mortgage crisis. As someone who’s been evicted in the past, I can truly say that is one of the worst things that can happen to a person and I commend his actions on this. He’s a White Sox fan. Plus, he’s kind of sexy. Still, his efforts to fight prostitution are misguided and he’s likely to fail with other measures as there’s really no way to prevent prostitution or prostitutes from advertising their services. In the meantime, a lot of money will be spent on arrests when it could be used to provide other services such as housing and education for those in the sex trade. Jus’ sayin!

Perhaps someday these law enforcement officials will actually listen to the people they are trying to “help.”

I’ll admit that I’d never been more excited about a porn series than when I’d heard Tristan Taormino was doing a “Rough Sex” line for Vivid. Not only am I a huge fan of Tristan’s “Chemistry” and educational videos, but I’m a huge fan of rough sex as well. Yes, it’s true. The rougher the better for me and I have a hard time finding porn that depicts rough sex in a sexy, but non-disgusting or degrading way. That’s not to mention getting guys to participate in it in my personal life, which is equally as difficult and usually results in awkward and irritated moments. But I digress…

The first video in the “Rough Sex” line features five women and five definitions of Rough Sex. Each segment on the video features a set-up where both the male and female performer explain their experience with rough sex, what their limitations are, and what they like about rough sex. What I’ve always admired about Tristan’s videos is that she uses performers who actually enjoy what they’re doing and seem to approach their roles as porn stars in an intelligent manner, rather than, “I’m just here to get paid to fuck”. Through brief interviews, we get to know them as people and not just some figure than appears onscreen and has sex without giving the viewer anything to relate to. And sure, while the average horny guy may fast-forward through these parts, there’s something revolutionary about presenting porn performers as level-headed humans who actually enjoy the sex they’re having onscreen.

In the DVD’s first scene, Adrianna Nicole explains part of her attraction to rough sex is because “I enjoy intense experiences,” which is exactly what attracts me to it as well. Her scene with Marco Banderas starts out as an abduction from behind as she exits the shower, and the resulting roughness includes choking, manhandling, spanking, and even some kissing (!). However, after all this the sex transforms into more routine, typical porn-y sex until Banderas pulls her hair, whips her around and shoots his load in her hair.

Satine Phoenix’s scene with Derrick Pierce starts out a little slower, with a more gentle build-up involving more kissing, dirty talk, and then transforms into more roughness as the two get it on on the top of a cliff on a deserted road. Pierce plays the aggressor well and the chemistry between the two of them is undeniable. This was perhaps my favorite scene on the disc, as Satine’s genuine attraction to S/M play and being manhandled really shows here and by the end, she’s got the marks to prove it.

The scene with Francesca Le and Christian attempts to put the female in the aggressor role, punishing her workaholic husband who ignores her. The resulting scene is a typical Fed-Dom set up that’s not very rough and a little tired out if you have any sort of background in BDSM play. It’s nice to see the tables turned, however, but not a turn-on necessarily for me. The subsequent scene with Marie Luv and Julius Ceazher has the most realistic set-up and some of the more unpleasant interactions involving a couple having an argument. At times I couldn’t tell if Marie was experiencing pain or pleasure…or both…but it is one of the rougher scenes here.

We’ve all come to expect a lot from Sasha Grey nowadays and when she says she’s a “pain slut” who’s way more of a masochist than sadist, I was expecting a lot of hot, uber-rough sex for her scene with Danny Wylde. Instead, it’s a switch scene where they spend several minutes discussing their pain boundaries while playing pool. It all seems very unsexy to me as rough sex, in my opinion, should be spontaneous and constantly push boundaries. So, as a result, Grey’s scene has its moments, but sometimes it just falls flat, making me wonder if she could’ve, or would’ve, taken a lot more pain. Her orgasm is authentic, which is refreshing to see, and she seems to genuinely like being choked, but Sasha Grey I was expecting the limits to be pushed to the edge and I didn’t feel that was the case here. She’s still, of course, totally captivating to watch, so if you’re a Sasha Grey fan, you’ll be satisfied.

For all my nit-picky criticisms, I will say that Tristan’s videos never disappoint, and “Rough Sex” is very well-done in many respects. The camera catches close-ups of the performer’s faces as opposed to their genitals (though there are some genital close-ups for those who like that) and all of the cum shots are totally unique, as opposed to the typical on-the-face or in-the-mouth. It’s actually a great release for couples who like a little rough sex in their lives or even women who want to see a porn video from a female perspective. For a rough sex junkie like me, though, I wanted to see bodies thrashing, biting, hitting, people getting thrown across the room, constant resistance, forceful gang-bangs…but perhaps I’m the sick one here. I know this is just the first in the series, though, so hopefully that some of that stuff is coming up on the next “Rough Sex” DVD. It’s a good start, but I’m excited to see a lot more roughness in the subsequent releases.

We’d been expecting it and had been given the knowledge that it was coming. However, we had no idea the campaign for “End Demand”, otherwise known as the Swedish model of prostitution, would be launched so soon. Last week I was alerted about this article in the Tribune that announced the goals of the End Demand campaign. Tom Dart was quoted, of course, and Warren Buffett’s son (not Jimmy!) has donated $550,000 towards the cause. Whew! If you check out the End Demand Illinois website, you’ll see they have a long list of organizations on their steering committee, only one of which (The Dreamcatcher Foundation) was headed by someone who had experience as a sex worker (publicly). We’ve had a few sit down talks with members of CAASE, but our organization, SWOP-Chicago, was not consulted about this or asked to be part of the steering committee in any way, despite our being the only grassroots advocacy and support group for sex workers in Chicago, let alone the state of Illinois. I’m a little insulted by this. We ARE the people that this legislation would affect if it passes, so why doesn’t anybody want to speak to us about it?

I’m also pretty concerned that several of the organizations on the steering committee are religious organizations, but that’s always a concern with me. However, some of the most disturbing things here are some of the language on the site, including the quote “If there was no demand, there would be no prostitution.” Are you kidding me? Does anybody really believe this. The majority of the ideology behind this seems to be the “worker is victim, client is perpetrator” and as I’ve written before, that is just not always the case. I understand that sex trafficking and coercion into the sex trade are serious problems that need to be addressed, but End Demand will not put an end to this.

There has been serious criticism of End Demand policy, specifically coming out of Sweden, where it has been the law since 1999. While studies showing the ban has been successful based on public opinion are rampant, the stories from Swedish sex workers such as Pye Jakobsson are quite different. Desiree Alliance and Sex Workers Project out of New York have fact sheets on the drawbacks of End Demand, but the bottom line is it makes working conditions actually a lot less safer for sex workers. The demand for prostitution will not be reduced, but now we will have clients afraid to go through any sort of screening process. There will be a serious drop-off of business for providers who want to stay safe by screening or getting to know clients beforehand and we’ll still all be at risk of violence and stigmatization. Why not just push decrim across the board? Well, it seems that us sex workers need to be rescued and our clients need to be punished.

Now, I can understand why the average worker would say, “hey, that’s great legislation, now I don’t have to worry about being arrested and they can arrest clients who pretty much never get targeted for arrest under the current system.” But if we’re really aiming for equality here, then why should we be punishing the clients? We should be punishing the pimps, the abusers, the traffickers, but the problem right now is usually the police, who don’t take the stories of sex workers seriously even when they are a victim of a violent crime. The police are the ones who don’t know how t identify trafficking victims, they’re the ones who tell prostitutes to service them in lieu of getting arrested, or ignore the complaints of violence because they think we’re all dirty whores. What makes anybody think “End Demand” will change the attitude of the cops? As my friend Joe Obenberger says, “One must ask what is really going on here. I doubt it’s any compassion. That’s not what the sheriff is known for. This one or any of them. It’s always about power and control…If the the end demand people were honest about their goal, they would call for an end to criminal sanctions for prostitution. But it’s just a smokescreen. Law enforcement backs this because it gives them leverage.”

That said, us lil’ ole’ sex workers haven’t got much to put up a huge fight against this. They’ve got lots of money and manpower for this campaign and Sheriff Dart’s backing, which is as good as gold to many Chicagoans (yeah, I know). We’re a small grassroots organization made up of a small smattering of somewhat lackadaisical sex workers (despite my best efforts, can’t lie about this) and somehow our opinions don’t seem to matter much to the End Demand folks. Perhaps our stories aren’t negative enough. I don’t mean to be an asshole, but I’m feeling flustered. And this shit is just starting.

A few weeks back my good friend kittenINFINITE and I sat down with adult industry attorney JD Obenberger to talk about legal issues, free speech, and the sex industry in Chicago. Joe’s website, XXXlaw.net, is a great resource for all sorts of information and articles on cases involving free speech and adult industry law. He speaks in detail about one case, “Not Guilty,” about an escort arrested in a prostitution sting that was acquitted despite the surveillance video used as evidence in her trial.

I’ve been on hiatus from RedLightDistrictChicago for awhile, but I’ve redone the site, allowing for comments from viewers and have a few video projects I’m working on now that should be up in the near future.

From blogs to books to public policy, I find myself constantly irritated by the pervasive attitude by so many…sex workers and not…that clients are these predatory, misogynist, nasty individuals who we all need to be protected from. Sure, some of them may be. Most of them aren’t. I don’t think it’s a secret that all types of men use the services of sex workers…they’re our fathers, sons, brothers, friends, neighbors, and even our grandfathers. They’re everybody. The people we see walking down the street each day and have random interactions with. Any one of them could be a potential client. I’ve come to learn this after many years in the industry.

Yes, I know many sex workers have their horror stories, their negative interactions with creepy or annoying clients, but let’s look at this line of work as we would any line of work. You’ll have some bad experiences on the job, but most will be just fine, or at least tolerable. I’ve had way, way worse experiences with men in the film industry or the service industry than I have with men in the sex industry. I’m a big believer in the golden rule when it comes to sex work, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I try to be affable and kind with my clients and they generally reciprocate and appreciate this sort of treatment. The rudest clients i ever experienced in this industry were when I worked for escort agencies and had no communication or interaction with the clients before seeing them. It was an impersonal experience and usually the client had been lied to by the phone operator and was already a bit distrustful. Since I’ve become independent, I rarely have to deal with clients I don’t like. I weed them out through my screening process. Occasionally I meet someone who’s nervous and quiet, but never anybody who’s downright rude.

I believe it’s part of my job as a sex worker…and maybe all sex workers…to present ourselves as humanly as possible to our clientele. For some workers, this isn’t always possible, but for others I think making a connection, finding a way to relate, or showing that your a human with feelings, stories, and can only help all of us work toward a goal of ending the violence and stigma attached to those in the industry. I remember years ago being on a 3-girl late night escort call with some young jock types. I sat chatting with a few of them in the front room while waiting for the third call to finish up and one of them said to the other, “I can’t believe we’re having such a good time with a hooker, man.” We all kinda laughed about it, but these are the kind of moments I look back upon fondly. Because oftentimes they don’t expect us to have opinions, to have interests, to have anything going on in our lives that’s worthy of talking about. When you’re able to change someones mind like that, it’s revolutionary.

Just recently I’ve had a few of my most rewarding experiences with clients, one of which was an incredibly strange and wonderful coincidence that has since resulted in a productive professional partnership. The first client, a widower of four years, was a referral from an escort friend of mine. I drove almost an hour to see him, but we spent a few hours chatting about books, politics, sports, whatever. I told him about Victoria Woodhull, whom he’d never heard of, and pressed him to investigate her fascinating life story. He scheduled a session again last week and emailed me mentioning he was going to be doing some more reading up on Woodhull before our session together. How thoughtful! I’d just finished reading Notorious Victoria:The Life of Victoria Woodhull so I thought I’d pass it along to another curious party and avid book reader. he was a bit surprised when I told him “I have a gift for you” and graciously accepted it, admitting the only books he could find on her were children’s books. Pretty strange for the leader of the “free love” movement.

The next day I received this email- “That was the first gift I’ve received since my wife died four years ago. No shit. A really heartfelt thanks.”

No, I don’t normally give my clients gifts: it was kind of funny that I had even thought to bring that, but emails like that really make me feel lucky to be a part of this business. To make someones day like that, it’s worth way more than money. This business isn’t all about selling sex or specific acts. Anyone can do that. To keep a client coming back, you have to offer them something more…a connection of some kind that makes them feel good about themselves.

I’ve been hesitant to write about the second client experience I had, for a variety of reasons including what has become one of the most controversial connections I’ve made with a client, but it’s become a good example of how you can meet really amazing, interesting people in this line of work. (I don’t get romantically involved with clients so that’s not what I’m talking about.)
I knew we’d hit it off when I found out that he was a filmmaker who worked in harm reduction with a part of the sex worker population, and sure enough, we clicked right away. I’m usually hesitant to tell clients about my activist work, but when I handed him one of the SWOP-Chicago business cards, he was somewhat taken aback and announced that he’d been wanting to contact us for sometime. Weird how these things happen. A chance encounter has now turned into a alliance between our two organizations and a good friendship with a person I can turn to for advice every now and then.

It’s important to share these stories because what I read so often are the stories about the clients that pushed boundaries, that grossed someone out, or that just plain disrespected the worker. These aren’t the only experiences we have. What type of client a worker attracts depends on how he/she advertises, what type of work they do, where they work, and most importantly, the way they respond to these people. I attend provider/client parties here locally from time to time that are mostly for networking purposes, but usually become social gatherings where we, the workers, can hang out with clients in a relaxed social setting where nothing is expected except conversation, the same as any party. While I usually end up in some sort of heated political discussion, I find it valuable that we can get to know each other as real people and not some sort of modified sexed-up version of ourselves we’re expected to project.

With all the discussion surrounding the “End Demand” or “Swedish Model” being promoted here in Chicago and other cities, people need to realize that punishing the clients is not part of the solution. They are not necessarily the predators that people want to portray them to be. Penalizing them doesn’t make anything easier for us. If someone in this industry truly hates his or her clients, then they should stop doing this type of work. But I defend my clients…the nice ones, that is…and I don’t view them as my enemy, rather as people I can enjoy a brief, mutually beneficial friendship with from time to time.