By Mary Magdalen
My great grandfather immigrated from Germany after being forced into the German Army at the age of 12. He had been kicked out of his home and was living on the streets. He was picked up by army guards and they gave him two options, join or be killed. He was awarded the Iron Cross for fighting in a war they called ‘great.’ Afterwards he loaded up on a ship to come to the states, believing that the US was the “land of milk and honey.”
After arriving, he took a job in the coal mines in Pennsylvania. Working alongside his brother in a company town. They, along with many other immigrants, suffered under the hands of the mine bosses. The two of them risked everything and escaped under the cover of night, leaving their unpayable debt to the company store behind them. They took their wives and headed west to Crested Butte.
My great grandfather and his brother continued to mine, and made moonshine and sold it as needed to keep food in their families mouths and coal in the stoves.
He did not know how to drive, although he did anyway. Taking my young father to the dump—‘shine in his flask’—in whatever gear the jalopy could ‘grab.’ Sometimes, this meant driving for miles in reverse. The two of them dug through what others garbage, searching for treasures they otherwise couldn’t afford.
My great aunt taught the family English, translating for them starting in kindergarten. Not only was she an extremely skilled and talented artist, but she won the Bausch and Lomb Science award while in high school. This caught the attention of the US Government and they offered her a position in Washington DC. Her parents told her she was to marry instead. She chose a partner who had enlisted with the Army and fought in WWII. Blessed by his absence following his return from the war as a traveling salesman, she was free to explore her artistic expression and meet his expectations of dinner served promptly at 4pm when he happened to be home.
This along with her knowledge of abortifacients allowed her to not have children. She and my grandmother assisted many women with unwanted pregnancies during a time when this was illegal, and before the scientific breakthrough of the “Pill.” Unfortunately, the herbal remedy from the “old country” died with them, given the stripping (no pun intended) of women’s rights in the last couple of years, I believe they both wish they’d have snuck it into their recipe boxes.
My father was many things. One of which, a union electrician. This person is more difficult for me to talk about as he was the biggest man I’ve ever met, not in size or stature, but in what is referred to in the trade of humanity, as a people person. Not because he was social or nice (truth be told he could be an asshole) but he was kind, genuine, and my best friend. So here goes, the duality of my dad.
He would find himself out of work at times, either by layoff or choice—problems with authority. He had a habit of cleaning up work sites, oftentimes this included unused rolls of copper cable wire. An unemployment check only goes so far. Us kids had a great time removing the black rubber coating from the wire with him. A trip to Van Gundy’s recycling meant grocery day was soon!
My dad quietly struggled with the realities of survival and character. He would take a deer out of season, provide a place for the weary, say fucked up shit, and then sneak me out to the garage to chose which of the four bunnies, which he bartered for in Cedaredge, to place in my basket come Easter morning.
He’d take us camping for weeks on the Mesa, tearing up logging stakes along the way. I once thought that that was my first act of civil disobedience, turns out I was complicit in father’s job site copper capers.
While this introduction has nothing to do with sex work specifically, it does open the discourse for understanding the intersection where character and necessity meet. The ways in which people choose to navigate and survive systems of oppression has nothing to do with character. Due to societal justifications and definitions of what success and failure look like it can be challenging to accept. Social assumptions such as the ability for one to pull themselves up from their bootstraps leave many with a false understanding of character, success and failure. There’s even more to grapple with when your education has told you that your work is disgusting.
Having left the industry as well as holding a couple cards of privilege, it is my duty to speak up about it and share that sex work, along with poverty, houselessness or addiction have nothing to do with character. They’re nothing more than acts of survival. When a system is broken, the methods to survive it also be broken.
Having the advantage of space and time from the beginnings of the career, I have been able to see how the relationship with my own character affected how I presented to those around me. I felt as though I had to defend the choice to an extreme in an effort to hide the shame that would creep in. Doing so did not allow for a balanced discussion of what it really looked like to sell sex. I shared with friends how empowering this was. I spoke about how easy it was to decompress after meeting with a client. I joked about the ease in which I could treat myself to a designer handbag. It was my “hard girl” era and I am naturally a “soft girl.”
People attempted to be supportive, making statements such as “at least it’s more fun than paperwork,” or hinting at my possible physical enjoyment. I’d giggle politely and shrug it off, after all, I had made this choice that carries stigma. Being a whore isn’t always fun or glamorous. However, it would be equally inaccurate to deny the positive aspects. Selling sex freed up my time enough that I was able to take a full course load and excel in my classes and still be a parent. It granted me a new passion and a worldview that I would never have gained. I became engrossed in all things sex work. Advocating in places where I felt safe and in some where I did not. I was blessed to volunteer with a sex work outreach program in my city. Not to mention the liberation that it brought for me to discover what I did and did not enjoy sexually, in addition to how far outside of those parameters I would go to be able to clothe my children.
But here’s the thing about sex work, it’s still work. It’s draining and exhausting, both mentally as well as physically. Sometimes I didn’t want to show up any more than the receptionist at your dentist’s office doesn’t want to go into work. It’s literally playing pretend, creating and selling a fantasy. Balancing being too fake with too real. Juggling safety alongside needs. It was also scary.
No matter what precautions a sex worker takes, it may not be enough. There’s risks of losing ones children, of physical and sexual assault, rape, exploitation or jail time. It impacted my romantic relationships. Dating on the apps lost its appeal, why would I hook up with a rando for a cocktail and appetizers when I could do the same and pay my utilities instead? How do you bring up being a whore to a partner you start to care about? Do you even bring it up at all? How do you explain why getting regular pedicures and full sets is a job requirement? What do you tell your children when they ask why you’re dressed as you are? None of these questions can be answered by anyone except for the whore asking for themselves. The territory comes with a tremendous gray area.
Most folx have careers where OSHA regulations are actively enforced in a way to ensure workers safety. Many even have the safety net that programs such as workers compensation provide. A lucky few are unionized. What would it be like for you, not having access to these programs or even the ability to get assistance from law enforcement if necessary? Imagine walking the streets, a vehicle approaches and slows to a stop, leaning in and knowing that you have to make a judgment call on the intent and safety of the driver in less than three seconds. Any longer and you could end up in cuffs, or possibly arrested anyway, as the potential client might be an undercover. Or walking into a bougie hotel room to discover that your odds are not in fact one v one.
In cities across the country even carrying condoms on your person is enough for a sex trafficking or prostitution charges. Laws utilize the language of sex trafficking in order to gain the public’s support. No one wants children to be trafficked and forced or sold into the trade. Two recent changes in legislation—Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act—both make it much more difficult for sex workers to advertise online or collect information about potential clients. Unfortunately, as is the case with most legislation these laws do little to protect the people, we intend them to, and instead make it more difficult for consenting legal adults to safely make a living.
Criminalization makes sex work dangerous for workers to report rape or assault. In fact, 30% of complaints from NYC to Aspen made by sex workers are against police officers. Sex work outreach creates “bad date lists.” On those lists cops are four times more likely to be mentioned than pimps. The daily stress of fearing for your life and staying out of jail leads you to self-medicate. Drugs and alcohol become easier to access than healthcare. Which circles back to the idea of character.
So frequently we are digesting the narrative that those who are unhoused or working the streets are not deserving of having their basic needs met due to a character flaw. We’re told they’re lazy, refusing to work or are where they’re at now due to their addictions. Never considering that an addiction often manifests itself due to circumstances. Let alone societal ideas about wealth and character. A rich person having cocktails at 10am on a Tuesday is simply “day drinking” while the unhoused person doing the same is seen as a drunk.
When I daydream of a world decriminalized I see safety, for sex workers and their clients, I see people understanding it’s a job like any other, sometimes you love it and do feel empowered and other times you’d rather be doing anything other than fucking a client, I see a world where sex workers can report assault, can carry condoms, can access testing with a frequency that does not garner judgement, support groups and therapists who are trained in the unique complexities of the job. Conferences engaging sex workers in the panel discussions. I see pride in the eyes of the whores I know and a society that has accepted the world’s oldest profession for what it is. And this future makes my heart feel content with being a whore.
The Revolutionist 