TRIGGERWARNING: sex, sexwork, drugs, violence, human trafficking, sexual abuse, men.
Recently, I have been thinking about the area of ‘sex work’. After watching a documentary on the subject recently, I was really angry for a few days.
In the documentary, two different milieus were lumped together. Two women spoke on the topic. One of them was sold as a child by her mother to a human trafficker, then resold multiple times and then repeatedly forced into prostitution. She took refuge in a drug addiction and was then forced to finance her drug addiction. She had to pay her pimp, rent a room to work as a prostitute and finance her drug addiction. To do that, she had to have at least six clients a day to pay for the room and some coke. She managed to get out through a number that she received from a social worker a few years earlier when she was not even thirty years old. She was pregnant and wanted to protect herself and her child. She now has extreme problems establishing closeness with her child and giving physical closeness.
I condemn human traffickers and the like. I don’t have to think about that. It is the ultimate act of inhumanity to trade in, sell and – in this case – force someone into prostitution.
I wish her all the luck in the world and hope she will remain stable and continue on her path.
The second woman was under thirty. Dressed in somewhat alternative clothes and quite youthful. She was interviewed in her flat, among other places, and in between she was seen working on her laptop. And then I saw this sticker ‘Customers are offenders’. (in German: Kunden sind Täter)
She showed a page on the internet on which she had registered (for voluntary sex work/escort) and reported that due to her family situation (her mother was probably on welfare) she never had much money and therefore had a guilty conscience. So she registered on the site and then started meeting men for money. She probably started when she was 23? and did it for a few years. She later switched to domination (probably to avoid sex?).
So far so normal in Germany.
And then it started: ‘I was dependent on being driven home by random strangers’
‘I went beyond my limits and did things I didn’t really want to do.’
‘When you do that, you sell a piece of your body, every time.’
‘The guys who came to me as a dominatrix wanted ‘things’. – For example, they wanted me to piss on them. They wanted to be beaten, sometimes until they bled. – followed by: ‘I think they should go to therapy rather than to me’
The last sentence really upset me. As a human being, I shouldn’t elevate myself above other people and speak for everyone. Making a judgement about whether someone should go to therapy because of their preferences instead of paying money for it is totally wrong in my opinion.
The main thing that came to my mind, as an assumption, was that she was far too young to have got to know herself (sexually) before offering services where she didn’t know her own sexual boundaries – or couldn’t enforce them.
At the end she reported that she had done all this during her normal training because she wanted to have money to be able to ‘live’ in the sense of ‘treating herself and having fun’. So there was no concrete compulsion, even if you don’t earn a lot of money in Germany in certain training programmes, it is sometimes possible to apply for grants and or do a mini-job on the side. This won’t make you rich, but depending on the city, you can live quite well with it. Child benefit is also available until the end of your training … etc.
At this point, I would like to clarify some statements:
Voluntary sex work IS voluntary.
If you are registered as an escort on various sites for self-employed people, then of course this could also have been done by your pimp, or by an agency, a brothel or whatever. But you probably know that best yourself. What I’m saying is that of course there are also problems with illegality, human trafficking and abuse in this segment. You should be aware that customers also know this and may ask you about it.
If customers are not able to make respectful offers, write to you in a reasonable way or negotiate your offer price, then don’t meet with them. Especially if you’re doing this on the side and on a freelance basis, like the lady I mentioned, you shouldn’t have to meet with everyone, even if you don’t really want to.
Don’t meet anyone with whom you have a bad gut feeling. If you are unsure, meet for a coffee in a public place.
If you’re at someone’s house and it doesn’t feel good, then leave. The money doesn’t matter if you’re scared.
If a customer is behaving badly, leave.
If a customer is abusive, acts without consent and becomes/is violent. THEN he is an offender and you should report him.
This is the crux of the matter. The report also features a police officer who complains that many prostitutes don’t want to talk to him when it comes to prosecution.
If we criminalise sex work and the hurdles for a casual activity, especially financially, are punished extraordinarily harshly, and there is also a stigma that condemns sex workers, then no sex worker will decide to file a criminal complaint against an offender. This way, perpetrators can get away with it.
Fear of not saying anything is not only familiar from the field of sex work.
‘You sell a piece of your body every time’.
No.
You’re selling a service. Just like every other person who goes to work. You are offering a service. Ideally, an escort is so much more than sex. It’s companionship, wish fulfilment, good conversation or exploring areas you didn’t even know existed.
If you are not able to enjoy escort services or, let’s say, see them as a normal service, then please don’t do this job.
It requires a lot of personal responsibility. You have to take care of everything yourself. Nobody tells you what you have to do and nobody tells you what is ‘normal’ and good for you. You have to find out and know for yourself.
Of course, a large proportion of customers are male. If a man is looking for a service for himself, he will naturally look at your key data. If you have small breasts, long hair or a size 39 shoe, then you might be his type. If you weigh 200kg and like to wear patent leather – then someone else will write to you. What I’m getting at: of course it’s all like ‘I pick a person out of a catalogue’. When I go to the hairdresser, I also look at what’s on offer beforehand and think about which shop might suit what I’m looking for.
It is absolutely naïve to think that this is about something else. Of course, there are customers who are looking for love on various sites, they want to free poor women from prostitution and offer them a better life. Of course, the poor women can only achieve this through HIM. And a relationship with HIM. In which you are then ‘safe’ and no longer have to do all that.
Moving from a completely self-determined situation into a monogamous relationship with financial dependence is a very common method – in the world of heteronormative relationship models – of treating women like property.
This is an example of the absurdity I perceive in this area of self-determined – independent sex work.
Of course, it is also noticeable on these sites that more and more women are offering themselves for a ridiculous price. Some of them don’t use STD protection and push the prices down. Do you want to meet people who meet sex workers who don’t use contraception? No.
Decide for yourself who you meet and who you don’t. If your job is not profitable and you are forced to meet a certain clientele that you don’t really want to meet, then it’s time to reorient yourself and look for another job. It’s a tough business and it’s certainly not getting any easier under the current laws.
Feminists who want to tell others that offering sex as a service should be banned, that it’s only possible because the patriarchy makes us do it, etc. etc. It’s just sad. It’s just sad.
A brief interjection at the end: The sex work industry is diverse. Very diverse. Thank you.
Endnote: Banning sex work will not stop illegal human trafficking, abuse of women or tax evasion. Controlling that women have their blood taken once a week without providing proper gynaecological care will not reduce the spread of disease. Stigmatising sex workers will only lead to further exclusion.
Please stand by.