6.27.2005

The Whore Revolution Has Just Begun

Sometimes, surrounded by my little sex-positive feminist bubble, I forget that not everyone is down with the whole hooker thang. In fact, I would venture to guess that most people think that all sex workers are crack-addicted whores (in a bad way) who are out to wreck happy marriages and coast off the welfare system while they collect beau-coup cash from sucking back-alley dick. Sure, sex workers and feminists have done a lot (A LOT) for advancing the notion that empowered women can (and do) choose sex work for a career and that it's ok, but most of the world hasn't caught up. Even a lot of the leftist community has a skewed vision of the sex trade industry; it seems that the large majority of those folks think that it's made up entirely of agency-less children who have been forced into sex slavery by abusers (which, of course, is the truth in many cases, especially in certain countries abroad, but certainly not all).

So I had this moment sometime last week when I realized that, duh!, I'm going to have to disclose my occasional job to future partners. When the only form of sex work I did was modeling naked for a feminist erotica website, I didn't think it was really anybody's business what I did. After all, looking coyly at a camera in my skivvies for a token sum doesn't really affect my sex partners. And even though I'm safe with the johns in the work that I do now, the fact that I do it for money is something that they probably have a right to know. And, taking that fact into consideration, the chance that I'll get rejected multiplies many fold. I of course knew that this was a possibility in theory, having read lots of sex worker literature, but it didn't quite hit me as reality until I was thinking about some of my current crushes and recoiling in horror when I came to terms with the fact that I might be having to reveal this intimate part of my life with every casual fuck and every potential long-term partner I might come across.

But this is sticky territory. I mean, do I really have an obligation to disclose this to someone if we're having a one-night stand? Because, how is what I do that much different than a person who is very sexually active? And, as my journal title indicates, the sex work I do is an occasional thing. I actually haven't had a ton of clients. So, unless someone is likely to be a long-term partner for whom this information actually matters, am I bound by my own ethics to disclose?

All of this makes me feel very very icky, as I am forced to remember what awful awful things people in our culture think about people who trade sex for gain. It makes me shake with fear that I have no legal protection should my job find out about this, or my parents, or even people that I would have thought to be open-minded, but who would really be willing to condemn me in a hot second. Of course, it doesn't mean that I plan to stop doing what I'm doing, because I have and will continue to be for the whore revolution. Maybe I should choose to be positive and see this as my opportunity to dispel those nasty myths and catch people up to speed.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't think you're obligated to tell anyone that you do it for money at all unless you are fostering a long term relationship with them. To me, it's the same as when someone assumes you'll be monogamous with them just because you're sleeping with them. The line between a one night stand and sex work is incredibly thin in my opinion. At least the kind of sex work you seem to be doing.

But yes, as far as long term relationships, it will probably be quite a problem, I think. But there are plenty of people, obviously, that work through it, so it's not impossible, it's just going to be a hunt.

xxx
Adel

3:40 PM  
Blogger Lusty said...

I share your opinion, and I definitely appreciate the feedback. Sometimes I get worried that I justify shady-ass things in my head just because I really want to do them (or not do them, as the case may be).

4:06 PM  

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