Being Amber Rhea

If you haven’t read Amanda’s series of posts chronicling her now-completed stint at Bella’s, you are really missing out on some of the best, most insightful writing in a long time. So get on over there and read it. I’ll wait.

Tonight as I was trying to catch up on my almost 300 unread posts in Bloglines (I’ve been on a self-mandated break from reading many blogs other than a select few; this crap really made me feel down in the dumps about blogging for a while), I noticed that someone else, heretofore unknown-to-me blogger Mariko Passion, has now started a journal of her experiences at Bella’s. Cool! Maybe Amanda has started a trend.

Recently I had dinner w/ Lia of Star Light Ministries. And, no surprise, she is awesome. At one point during our extended dinner conversation, we were talking about all the assumptions that are made about women in sex work, and the problem of assuming that the goal of a ministry for sex workers is for the workers to “get out” of sex work. Because as Lia said, that’s judging the work they do and therefore judging them. Plus it’s just the same old stereotypes - obviously no woman would want to be in sex work, obviously they would all do something else if only they had the chance, etc. ad nauseum. I said that even though I feel like it’s not a popular thing to say in activist communities, because I feel like it makes me look like I’m being selfish (ah, that old meme in my head) or shifting the focus, the truth is that beyond just being irritated w/ these assumptions on general principles, I also take them personally. Sex work is something I’ve been drawn to for a long time - at least 10 years - and although as of now I haven’t actually done anything about it, I do take offense to the notion that there must be some pathological explanation for my interest in sex work. I know myself, I know how I feel, and I know that I feel that sex work is something that is interesting/appealing to me. You don’t have to understand it, but hey, I don’t understand why some people want to become lawyers or sales reps or flight attendants, so there you go. I’m smart, responsible, self-aware, capable - and I shouldn’t have to go into this defensive mode of justifying myself, but that’s how it always happens.

Lia asked why I hadn’t tried sex work. With stripping, my answer used to be* that I couldn’t walk in heels, much less dance (with or without heels). That’s obviously no longer a problem, but my issues with it now are:

• I don’t know of any non-smoking strip clubs in Atlanta. Being around cigarette smoke for extended periods of time, especially in poorly-ventilated areas, gives me a pounding headache and makes me feel generally like shit.
• I hate approaching strangers. I really just can’t do it; I get panicky about it. So obviously a job where I have to hustle for lap dances isn’t a good fit for me.
• The bullshit. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

As for escorting or even stuff like FBSM, when Lia asked why I’d never done it, my answer was much shorter: “I’m afraid of getting arrested.” That’s it, plain and simple. And more specifically, I’m afraid of getting arrested and being victimized by the cops. Insert here yet another diatribe about the importance of decriminalization of prostitution.

(To be fair, there are other issues w/ escorting in particular, like the fact that it seems like you have to pretend to give a shit about what the clients are talking about, really really enjoy their company and hang on their every fascinating word… and as Dacia has said about herself, I, too, have no poker face. I have tons of respect for people who can do it, but I just can’t. But that’s not really relevant, because there are many other kinds of sex work that are vaguely escort-like but not as focused on being a companion.)

Lia said she thought I should (only if I wanted to, of course) do what Amanda was doing: try a brief stint at a legal brothel and just see how it goes. I told her there’s no way I would do that. Why? Because of the bullshit.

Just read Amanda’s posts and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The nickel-and-diming with all kinds of fees. The customers trying to lowball you all the time. The cabin fever. Having to do shifts on the damn CB radio.

And the stuff that’s not just annoying, but potentially dangerous: The lack of adequate security. The creepy (yet required by law - ’cause prostitution is legal and therefore the girls are safe, see!) doctor. The drunkenness of customers, and of people to whom you’re entrusting your safety. The lack of easy access to an exit in case of an emergency. The pressure to potentially put one’s health at risk for the sake of not letting “money” walk out the door.

Obviously all jobs have their annoyances. But these are above and beyond what I could put up with. The second set, the ones that are downright dangerous, are obviously conditions that no job should have, ever. The first set, the “annoyances,” all exemplify a huge pet peeve of mine, something that just drives me up a wall: micromanagement by people on little power trips.

It seems to me that that’s what’s behind a lot of this stuff. It’s the same at strip clubs, with the house fees and drink quotas and tipping every damn person on staff… on and on… to me it reeks of people trying to control things and make themselves feel like Oooh Big Important People in whatever tiny way possible. Insecurity. Bred out of a stigmatized industry, not surprisingly. It seems like a vicious cycle.

Major respect to Amanda for doing this and documenting it. What she’s doing is extremely important, and she is an amazing person to have the patience to deal with it at all. I really can’t convey how much respect I have for her w/ this series.

One thing’s sure, her posts have confirmed what I’d suspected for a long time: if I were to be an escort (or whatever), I’d be independent, no doubt about it. Of course I have plenty of issues w/ freelancing in general, but in this case it is definitely the way to go, no question.

* And just look at the comments on that thread for a perfect example of the “explanations on demand” thing. It’s crazy-making, I tell you.

From Monica at the $pread Blog:

Again, what other profession would we do this with? “I was going to help with the open heart surgery for my article, but…at the last minute I threw up and ran out of the room.” “I was going to sit on the 10th floor’s ceiling beams with the construction workers so I could bond with them over lunch, but my fear of heights was just too great, so I just stayed on the second floor, crying and shaking in my hard hat.”

A-freakin’-men.

I don’t read Belledame’s blog much anymore, for a variety of reasons I won’t go into because I don’t have the mental or emotional energy to deal with people coming over and giving me shit about it. But I happened to hop over there via someone’s link, and saw this comment from Octogalore, which I just had to share. It is so right on.

[T]he idea of a “utopian ideal” of “a private space where men and women could express their sexual selves freely” and get “personal sexual gratification” but which is also a strip club, strikes me as highly narcissistic and highly problematic in other ways.

Would we consider as “ideal” that a lawyer get “personal gratification” handling our cases? That someone waiting tables would have mutual glee at our enjoyment of our lasagna? No, they are professionals doing a job for which they are paid in the usual manner.

Of course it would be great if everyone had a jolly old time while at the job, but why the SPECIAL need for sex workers to have this? There doesn’t seem to be a lot of glorification of the idea of mutual satisfaction for wait staff or sales professionals or other kinds of professionals who are female.

It’s highly coincidental that in sex work, uniquely, the satisfaction a customer derives is proportional to or at least related to the pleasure a sex worker appears to derive, no?

And I’m not really one for coincidences.

So I think the intense need to press for this utopian, mutual pleasure is not really all that mutual.

In addition to that particular issue, there’s also a reality gap there. Sex workers are professionals. That means that they have skills beyond those of the general population in providing a pleasurable experience of a sensual nature combining a carefully maintained appearance, skills in conversation, dance, sex, whatever. The population of customers may include standouts in this area but it’s fair to say that on average, the customer population is as skilled as the general population, which is to say: much less skilled than the dancer population.

That’s not a slam on customers but is true of any job. The customers for doctors are less skilled at medical work. The customers for lawyers are less skilled at legal work. Same for teaching, counseling, building, etc. etc.

So to expect that the customer population would be as able to provide what the dancer population is providing is severely devoid of logic as well as respect for the profession.

That said, I personally benefited substantially from this particular notion, and in solidarity with current and future strippers, I hope they can as well.

I think some of us who endeavor to be allies to sex workers - or even just sexually progressive* - sometimes overcompensate and move into territory of having a special set of standards for sex workers, not unlike our opponents (indeed most of society) do. Our special set of standards just happens to be different, arguably more “positive,” but no less unrealistic and putting sex work into a special, separate category apart from other types of work.

* “Just” sexually progressive? Oh lord…

Repost of two comments I left at Season of the Bitch.

I have longer posts in the works about each of these sentiments, but for now this will have to suffice until I flesh out my thoughts a bit more.

—
First comment:

I have a big problem w/ people who dismissively cast concern about sexual equality as “bourgeois.” To me, this says, yet again: “Oh, it’s sex, it’s not REALLY important, silly little girl.” And it doesn’t acknowledge the truth of MY experience, growing up in a working-class family and being VERY interested and concerned with sexuality.

I think Queer Dewd a.k.a. Bitch | Lab said it best here.

Major quotage:

Because, lord knows “my” issues aren’t also anyone’s who doesn’t share them. Because lord knows “my” issues are white mainstream middle class feminist fluff. So, heaven help me if I dare speak to something that has profoundly fucking shaped my life and the lives of men and women I love: being sexually marginalized, being erased, having to hide who I am or watch others do so, having to listen to all manner of bullshit.

So, when I dare talk about anything that matters to me, why, I’m a fucking pro-pornstitution feminist and/or white mainstream feminist - if I’m lucky to be called a feminist at all. If I’m even lucky to not be called a man. Because, after all, what it is really all about as I learned a year ago is that I’m all about my moist pussy and my vast, vast, vast, vast porn collection. (oops sorry. Channeling Heart)

Erased. Deleted. Evaporated. My identity, my past, who I am, who my friends are - it doesn’t matter - because I am immediately assumed to be engaged in the issues of concern only to white middle class women or, conversely, a male-identified, patriarchy-fucking, freelancer provacateuring for the right wing. (Damn. Wish I knew who the rest were. I need to do some benchmarking on my competition.)

Because lord knows there are no poor, white, queer women. And it often seems that the only way to have anyone take us seriously on this issue is to focus on extreme marginalization or the fact of poverty, rather than examining the everyday acts of silencing and erasing. If it involves bodily harm or extreme psychic harm, that’s important. But if it’s the harm done to women like RenEv by the way they are treated in this society, then it is *piffle*. If it’s the harm from having your sexual identity erased and you are bisexual: big fucking whoopee. And for christ’s sake don’t you even dare talk about taking pole dancing classes and how that’s personally empowering for you given your working class, Southern, conservative, Christian upbringing. There are more important things in the world and obviously poverty supercedes that.

Except. It. Doesn’t.

Because I (or Amber, or any other woman) can’t be pulled apart into those baby block beads that are discrete from one another, that can be snapped back together after examining each one: one bead poor, one bead queer, one bead woman, one bead white.

I am sex positive because I don’t know what else to call a feminist who fights against the instantiation of elitism and classism in mainstream society and among feminismS, an elitism and a classism that is so subtle virtually no one sees it, and who rails against the way this normalization of class warfare revolves around, among other things, sexuality and sexual representation. I don’t know what to call a feminist who cares about the way these same issues are racialized, who cares about the way sex and sexuality are subject to the same normalizing hegemonic institutions as any other oppressive system we are all supposed to struggle against and dismantle.

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Second comment:

And also?

My feminism is critical of power relations based on a linear hierarchy. (This translates into me feeling guilty being ‘the boss’ at work).

Fuck guilt. First of all, sometimes hierarchy is necessary - and as long as you’re not being an asshole, there’s no problem. Secondly, we get enough guilt heaped onto us as women, without burdening ourselves with MORE guilt for achieving a modicum of success.

So, my mom is looking for a second job. It needs to be something with flexible enough hours that she still has time to do real estate stuff when needed, and also where she doesn’t have to be out of the house for 8 straight hours a day, since my dad can’t be left alone for that length of time. She’s concerned about finding something that pays a decent wage, as someone her age and with no college education. Of course, age discrimination is illegal, but it’s one of those things just like other insidious forms of discrimination… you have to prove it. Which can take away time and energy people need to devote to other things (like finding a job).

She is looking into a part-time property management position opening up at the real estate office where she has her license; if that worked out and paid decently, it would probably be ideal. I just worry that the broker might try to low-ball her and/or that she’d end up too busy with this added to everything else on her plate.

I suggested Starbucks, because: 1) they pay a competitive wage for that type of job (supposedly, anyway); 2) they are big on diversity; I have seen plenty of people my mom’s age and older working there; 3) employees have access to health insurance if they work 26 hours a week (BIG PLUS); 4) the hours would be flexible; 5) she was a bartender for years, so making lattes would be a cinch.

She said everything she’s been seeing in the newspaper pays like $8-$10 an hour . (She made a comment about that being more than minimum wage but still not enough to live off of, and I wondered for a fleeting second, could my mom actually turn Democrat? But I digress…) She’s probably going to go to an employment agency and see what all is available. I’m worried that she won’t be able to find something that pays much more than that, especially in Augusta where cost of living is low (but of course, “cost of living” estimates don’t include piles of medical bills), and because damn near every job now, even if it’s just working at a cash register, lists a college education as a requirement even if it makes no sense.

So this is a very long-winded way of saying, does anyone out there have any bright ideas? Here is stuff she has done: Realtor in Augusta for ~21 years; before that, bartender and waitress for many years; before that, worked at a bookstore and at one point did a ~6-month stint at Ingram Book Company in Nashville, in the accounts receivable department.

I’ve put my thinking cap on and will be brainstorming like crazy. What say you, blog readers? Help my mom find a job!

Yet another excellent Naked City column from Ren, wherein she answers the oh-so-frequently asked question, “What’s the hardest part of your job?” An excerpt:

Well, I can say this truthfully and with authority. It’s not the weird hours. It’s not the seven-inch heels. It’s not the fasting and enemas before an anal scene. It’s not the rough fucking, or the getting groped by drunk guys, or body upkeep, or getting throat-fucked. It’s not the hustle, it’s not the strangers, it’s not the getting naked, it’s not the physical work. It’s not the waxing, it’s not the tit job, it’s not the scrubbing cum out of my hair. It’s not the names, it’s not STD testing, it’s not the crawling on all fours to pick up tip money off the floor.

It’s the objectification. From normal people. With their normal lives and abnormal questions. That is the hardest part, and it’s not even a hard part that feels good. I like my job, I have bad days, but mostly I love what I do, and I take pride in my work. The hardest part is normal people not getting that, then asking me how old was I when I first took it in the ass, how many guys have I fucked, and do I know where they could score some blow? It’s being made someone’s argument against my industry. It’s being not quite human to a whole lot of people. Normal people. Who I find myself liking less and less each day.

Words of wisdom, from another twenty-something feminist with a degree in linguistics and an eye for bullshit (whose blog I discovered yesterday):

The language we use to talk about sex work (and the metaphorical extensions of sex-work related words) emphasizes this point - by charging a fee to have sex with someone, a woman has sold her body and herself. Linguistically speaking, there’s a metonymy there - the “part” (sexuality) has come to substitute for the whole woman.

That’s objectification, and it’s objectification in the narrow, limited, sex-specific sense of the word - the definition of a woman’s self has been reduced to her sexuality, her value has become inextricably attached to her sex. On the other hand, it’s perfectly acceptable - laudable, even - for me to charge for the use of my brain, or for me to be “valued” for my intelligence. That wouldn’t be considered being “used”, it wouldn’t be thought of as “selling myself”. Paradoxically, that’s like saying that my brain is less valuable, less connected to what I am as a person - it can be partitioned off, the use of it essentially “rented” by my employers, and I can joyfully and proudly accept payment for it while I continue to use my brain outside of the workplace to also attract potentially desirable mates. “Selling” my brain doesn’t take anything from me, doesn’t make me less whole, doesn’t make me damaged goods, and yet somehow, selling my body in a sexual manner (because, of course, if I were selling the use of my body for work in a factory, we again would not be having this conversation) would. If my sexuality is not the sum total of my humanity, if it is not even the primary source of my “value”, then this attitude towards sex work is nonsensical.

Read the whole post.

Today I had a rather lengthy email exchange with Christopher Penn about sex work, economics, financial aid, and stereotypes. (Yes, all of those things together!) I was frantically typing away in multi-tasking mode while at work, and somehow my replies ended up being longer and smarter-sounding than I’d expected, so I figured I had blog material on my hands. (I did some minor editing to fix typos and such in the parts I wrote.) Hence:
Read the full post »

Question: “Why did you decide to work in the web industry?”

Answer: “It’s fun, challenging, and there’s always something new to learn.”

If someone asked me the above question, I would reply with the above answer. That would be a satisfactory answer, and the conversation would move on. Maybe we’d talk about web development, technology, etc., or maybe we’d move to other topics. Either way, I know my answer wouldn’t be followed by prying questions like:

“But why? What do you find so fun and challenging about it?”

“Are you sure there isn’t something else you’d rather be doing? You have so much potential!”

“Why do you need to prove yourself by writing code? You’re more than just a nameless, faceless code-writing machine, you know!”

“What could you possibly learn? It’s simple HTML.”

“Come on, let’s be honest. It’s not really work. Any idiot who knows how to use Google can figure out everything you need to know for your job.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be doing something that contributes to humanity?”

“How can you be so selfish?”

“You know, a lot of people don’t have the luxury to be able to pursue a career they enjoy. So who do you think you are? And what are you going to do about that?”

“Do you have problems meeting people? I heard web nerds are socially awkward and don’t know how to interact in real life.”

“What does your boyfriend think of what you do for a living?”

If I were unwilling to answer any and all of these follow-up questions? Oh, the poor dear. I’m clearly in denial about something. Why am I so defensive?

And what if I had simply answered, to the original question: “I have to pay the bills, and web development pays better than retail.” That would be an acceptable answer, too. There might be laughter, nods of agreement, conspiratorial smiles. There most certainly would not be frowns of pity and a soliloquy about how awful that is.

But replace “web” with “sex” in the original question above, and it’s an entirely different ballgame.

If I were to end this post right here, I guarantee you someone would come along and leave a comment along the lines of, “But but but… Some sex workers do have low self-esteem! Some of them are addicted to drugs! Some of them would rather be doing something else!”

To that I say, well, some web developers are socially awkward and don’t know how to interact in real life. Some Asians are bad drivers. Some black dudes carry concealed weapons. Some feminists hate men.

There will always be some people who fit a particular stereotype. But - and I shouldn’t even have to say this, right? - that doesn’t mean stereotypes are A-okay.

Because the fact is, some white people are bad drivers and/or carry concealed weapons. It’s worth examining why the stereotype is there for one particular group and not another. We know this.

And yet it all goes out the window when the topic is sex work. Somehow, otherwise intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded people lose their shit.

I know the stereotypes about sex work are deeply embedded in society - really, really deeply embedded. But that doesn’t make it okay to simply accept them without question. In fact, it makes questioning the dominant paradigm (that’s right, I said “dominant paradigm!”) even more imperative.

This is an example of the concerns and critiques I have with the porn industry.

A porn actress Tuesday settled her wrongful termination lawsuit against an adult film production company, which she accused of firing her for complaining about unsanitary work conditions.

This is why it’s so crazy-making to me when anti-porn folks completely dismiss my position as “YAY PORN; IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MEN; I HATE WOMEN.”

Because, this is the kind of thing I am very concerned about, and this is where I think a truly sex-positive, worker-centered approach to change is needed. It’s not about OMG TEH SEKS, which is what many people seem to get hung up on; it’s about safe working conditions, and employment policies that are fair to both employer and employee.

This is the kind of thing that concerns me about the porn industry. It’s a workplace issue, not a “sex is so degrading” issue.

As Anthony said:

[This case] is one more example of how a progressive, sex-positive analysis of both the sex media and the talent responsible for creating it is so badly needed… neither the more libertarian Right “let ‘em do it and damn the consequences as long as they get paid” meme nor the radfem “Poor oppressed women, let us liberate them from their plight, even if against their will” doctrine can do much good to help those like Kira Kener who deserve the right to perform her craft on her terms.

For those who were (snidely) asking a week or so ago on a few other blogs, this is what pro-porn activism is about.