Today, I realize the truth — that it is not sex work that society fears is dangerous, but sex workers.
I recently had the experience at my job of being warned by a colleague that other coworkers have begun Googling me. The concern is that I’m an elementary school teacher (teaching art/creative writing at a public school in the South Bronx) as well as a writer, and my writing– at least that which has been published and is therefore “Google-able”– is primarily about my experiences as a sex worker, which occurred some time prior to my becoming a teacher.
Since becoming a teacher I have known– hoped, even– that this would be a conversation I’d someday be compelled to have, and while I’ve done nothing at work to encourage such controversy, as a writer and an activist, not to mention former stripper, I’ve never been one to shy away from publicity. I welcome this debate in particular, not only because it explores issues of freedom of speech and the rights of workers to live self-determined lives outside of the workplace, but because, ultimately, here is another opportunity to call into the light the persistent and erroneous insinuation that once a prostitute always a whore– not “whore” in the pro-industry reclamative sense of the word but in its opposite, everything society has told me I am from the moment I first bared my breasts at a tit club, if not before.
For me, the question always returns to the question I asked myself at nineteen on the verge of that precipice, standing with a man I’d met only recently, talking for me to a fat man I’d only just met, presumably the owner of the club, in a language that I didn’t speak. At the end of some discussion he turned to me and asked, in Spanish, something to the effect of: is this what you want to do are you sure? At the time I thought, yes. Definitely. Why not?
I became a sex worker while living as a student abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico, starting as a stripper in an all-nude club appropriately named La Trampa— translated: the ‘tramp’ or, the ‘trap or snare.’ I began writing of my experiences in my mid-twenties and am currently at work on a memoir. Prior to becoming a writer, as an undergraduate I conducted ethnographic research in the US and across Europe, interviewing women from various aspects of the industry about themselves and their work, including how they reconciled their personal identities with the identity imposed upon them by their job.(The findings of my research has since been published in the recently released collection, Sex Work Matters: Power and Intimacy in the Sex Industry (Zed).
While all occupations require a certain amount of role playing and, consequentially, a necessary distancing of one’s self in the after-work hours from the person implied by their title, no job title comes home with you like that of ‘stripper’, ‘dominatrix,’ ‘porn star’ or ‘prostitute.’ The sex work industry is, in the minds of most— even, I believe, those of us who advocate for the rights of its existence— inextricably linked with deviance. Associated with drug abuse, mental illness, sexually transmitted disease, violence and victimization, to be labeled a “prostitute,” is, particularly for a woman, is to be cast as the lowest of the low. The very word a pejorative, women who engage in sex for money do so fearing both humiliation and prosecution. They are threatened by other women, by the men who pay them and by the authorities alike.
It calls to mind a quote from an interview I conducted with a Dutch woman named Anna, who’d worked as a call girl in Berlin. When asked about her first time, she said, “It was great. The next day I was going to the store and I was buying everything I needed. My refrigerator was empty.” She said again, “It was great. Butter and bread and milk and cheese. But then,” she said, “I got a sort of shock. Oh, I thought, now you are a prostitute. You did it once, and so now you will be it forever—it doesn’t matter if you do it once or twice or three times—a prostitute is a prostitute.”
When I first took a job as stripper, I had no sense that my decision to do so would have any real, far reaching effects on my life. To the contrary, I found in sex work a solution to very nearly all my problems at the time. No longer homesick or lonely, my new job not only remedied the un-belonging I’d experienced as a foreigner, but— as a product of a broken, working-class household, the first in her family to go to college, let alone study abroad– through sex work I discovered in myself a seemingly unending source of power and autonomy relating but not only having to do with my newfound ability to make money, and lots of it, anywhere in the world. And yet, my decision to strip naked for cash was consequential, less for my experiences in that dusty Mexican strip club— which were somewhat benign relative to what one might imagine— and more for “what some might imagine”— for, from that day forward, forever being seen and seeing myself through the lens of stigma attached to being a sex worker.
Moral arguments aside, the most common argument for the prohibition of sex work is that such work is a danger to the individuals involved, but research on sex work confirms what anecdotal evidence has long-time suggested, that neither traffickers nor pimps nor drugs nor disease but the stigmatized and criminalized nature of sex work is the greatest contributing factor making the industry dangerous.
Over a decade and three degrees later, I see how and why, in my experience, the solution became a problem of its own. Today, I realize the truth — that it is not sex work that society fears is dangerous, but sex workers in and of themselves. To many, I am dangerous. There is something wrong with me to have been capable of doing – freely and upon my own volition – something that any intelligent, decent woman would apparently never even consider doing. This something that is wrong with me, this logic clearly implies, is something that was there prior to my becoming a sex worker—something that which will remain forever.
Something that, for some, disqualifies me, still today, from working with children.
I suppose I could be fired, but for what exactly? For the act of having bared my breasts for money or for fact that I just admitted it in this article or for the fact that I make a habit of admitting it by reading details of my experience in dimly lit nightclubs for whomever will listen. What, exactly, crosses the line and becomes “conduct unbecoming of a professional”?
And just what, maybe you are wondering, does she mean by “sex worker”? She admits that she stripped but did she…
Does it matter?
This article is not—not yet, at least— in defense of my job. I also realize it is a not a question of whether an individual can, at one time, have been a sex worker and, today, be a teacher. The reality is that a person can, as I have served at my current position competently for a nearly three years. For me, it is a question of whether society is ready to adapt their schema to accommodate our reality.
It would be better, I suspect, if I were ashamed.
In an off the record conversation, a sympathetic administrator kindly asked if I couldn’t publish under a pseudonym. I wish, for her sake, I could. But for sake of the rights and integrity of myself and every other man or woman who makes or has made choices similar to mine, and then tries to make sense of these choices, I cannot. I learned along the way that “you are only as sick as your secrets.” My writing and performing my work has been my salvation. I wrote myself out of the hell of secrecy and into the body of the woman I am today, capable of making meaning of myself and my experience— more than qualified to manage a classroom and teach kids about art but also, like anyone else, to be more than just my job.
33 responses
The hypocrisy is the school board members that would fire you can spend every night in a nude bar drinking and suffer no repercussions. They might get in trouble if actually caught in the act of procuring sex but probaly only if it is from someone of the same sex.
Thank you for your integrity and your truths.
Wonderful Melissa; I can’t thank you enough for this article.
Not that it means anything, but you have my support!
Thank you so much for speaking it the way it is, Melissa. Glad your co-workers gave you the heads up so you’d write this article too 🙂 BRAVO!!
Wow. Very well done! This article makes me proud to be a sex worker advocate. You are so honest and brave and this is exactly the type of message that more people need to hear and start to think about.
Thank you for this fantastic article.
Challenging the status quo will always cause trouble. I think that’s good. I think that’s right.
I’m a teacher, too, and I frequently worry about my own blog because I use bad language, express political and religious beliefs that my school (Catholic) would not approve of, and talk about my lifestyle choices. Because it’s Catholic, my contract has a pretty stringent morals clause. Given some of the things I’ve chosen to write about, my principal could probably fire me, despite my excellent performance records.
It’s a fine line, one that I hate toeing. But I’m glad that you’re not letting people make you ashamed of the decisions that you made. It was also fascinating to read how those same decisions didn’t traumatize you, as one so often reads and hears. Good luck!
As a 6th grade teacher also working on a writing career, I really admire you. I have gotten myself in trouble several ties about things I have written on my blog. While they were about abuse and politics my small conservative town frowns on my viewpoint.
I have been asked by several administrators if I could tone it down or write another some other name. One even said they would frown on me having discussions with any student who stumbled across my blog and had questions.
So far the pressure has been small and more along the lines of peer pressure. I don’t care and won’t stop. I can only hope they are never foolish enough to try and actually make me stop.
I am proud to have you in the teaching profession.
I have mixed feelings about this. I find it ridiculous when people defend sex work as though it were some beautiful, noble thing that should be embraced and celebrated and injected into every part of society. I actually laughed at a friend of mine who once tried to tell me that being a stripper was somehow feministic.But I also don’t think it’s the sin of sins that some people paint it as, nor do I think that a woman who takes her clothing off for a living is of any less worth as a person than an upper middle class house wife who didn’t let a man see her naked until her wedding night and has sex only to produce children.
I think, basically, if you are an intelligent, kind, loving person, taking your clothes off in from of people doesn’t make you any less so.
p.s. I agree that prostitution should be legalized. It’s like marijuana, keeping it illegal is causing far more problems than legalizing it would.
Melissa – thank you so much for this brave and honest essay! You’re absolutely correct that the essence of most of the anti-porn and sex work activism is aimed not at the sex industry, but at the individuals who choose sex work. It is based in the same fear-driven ignorance that has been marshalled throughout history to marginalize so many different groups of people.
We recently published a book of essays and documentary photography titled “Off the Set: Porn Stars and Their Partners,” which explores the off-screen romantic relationships of ten couples who perform in porn. The book confronts the stereotype that porn stars are all damaged victims incapable of intimacy. We would love to send you a copy!
P&P
Melissa,
Is your collection of essays “Off the Set” available for purchase or reading? Where?
Melissa – writing from Europe, I can only say it’s people like you who make up whatever I admire in the USA. Whatever one does for a living – you simply get out there and stick to it. That in my opinion is basically all there is. People who under pretense of being socially concerned actually do nothing but actually notch up the social pressure are the same all over the world. Thank you very much for enlightening this for me again. Achim from a rainy county
You have my admiration and respect, fwiw. Keep up the great work.
Melissa – Thanks for your honesty and willingness to challenge the system. I taught elementary school for 10 years and felt forced to compartmentalize my sexuality so completely while around children that it became too stifling, and I left. I wish that there could instead be a healthy conversation around sex and education that would move us away from judgmental, puritanical, fear-based criticisms of sex workers and sexuality. Your efforts are appreciated.
I’m an ex-stripper, ex-domina, ex-porn star. I was in the biz for nearly a decade, and overall, my experiences were positive and empowering. I left the sex industry eight years ago. I’m currently an early childhood educator, well-loved and respected by the children I teach as well as their parents. My work is deeply fulfilling, and I would be devastated if I were dismissed due to small-minded perceptions of my past work. Thank you for an inspiring article.
I imagine attitudes in the South Bronx are a bit more liberal than in Indiana or Alabama. The driving force in all school districts is the fear of a lawsuit. All school administrators live in mortal fear of a school employee doing something inappropriate and discovering the employee has a shady background. Then the administrator’s butt is in the sling. Hence, you get the attitude that anything in a school employee’s history a bit risque ends up with a termination. My feeling is that being a former stripper probably isn’t “bad” enough to get you fired. You didn’t commit any crimes in doing it. On the other hand, being a hooker or pro dominatrix is clearly illegal. My hunch is that if the school found out you had been doing something that was illegal under prostitution laws, you would be shown the door pretty damn quick. Not fair, but right now there are a thousand job applications for every teaching job, so they can do it.
Thank you for continuing to write and support sex worker activism. Your story is inspiring.
I found myself in similar circumstances when I was young and stripped while going to college. The problem is you are correct, as soon as you admit to it, you become dangerous. Even if you deny having engaged in prostitution, people think it is a possibility. Congratulate yourself on your fight without using a pseudonym. I have been fired three times over this issue of my background, lost a marriage due to his insecurities with it, had a love interest refuse to consider marriage, had a second love interest threaten to tell everyone at work it was true I danced, and it has been 15 years since I even engaged in any such activity. It is a life-long struggle. I only worked at bikini bars and did about two or three topless private bachelor parties. I have no problem saying I am not proud of it at all. I can only say it was a means to get me through college when no one offered to help me financially or otherwise, and I never asked. My family knew and avoided me until it was all over with and I had my marriage and daughter. Best wishes to you. I feel your pain. Its a danger because there are many people out there who would lie and extort including yourself. You need only hear a rumor and confirm it is true to destroy anyone. It is dangerous. Advice to all – it looks like the easy way out of financial problems, but you will pay for it for a lifetime.
Thank you. Stay strong. They will thrown stones, but none dare look in a mirror.
Children should be taught as women that their bodies are temple to be taken care of. Sex is very intimate and spirtual intended for husband and wife. So not only are you breaking that rule but you are now with another women’s husbands and telling the man it’s ok to cheat, breaking up the family.
A result of oversexed life are sexual diseases that come naturally as your bodies way to tell you that you are to be with one person and one person alone. Sex profession are breaking up the sanctity of marriage and the family core! Children do better with a mother and father. And yes we all get lonely and all can use money but to resort to sex as a profession is definetly not the answer! I wish you the best and ask that you look at the mens lives who do this And look at the women who have had to turn to drugs to stomp at the awful emotions that they feel while twirling on the poles. Do we really want to teach our children that this is the way to go?
Best Wishes..
Looks like my hunch on July 1 was on the money. She was outed by the NY Post today. Turns out she wa working as an escort and she is now on paid leave. The media sharks are circling.
Stripping is legal and if the author was a former stripper and was fired for it, that would be completely wrong. However, she was a prostitute and that is illegal. She is a state employee and a teacher so of course she is going to be fired. Why would any parent be fine with a former sex worker teaching their children? She obviously has shown to have bad judgement by posting her real name with actual pictures of her, so my confidence in her as a teacher is pretty low. Personally, I think she wanted to get fired. Perhaps blogging about her and knowing that she will be caught was exciting for her. I have no idea, but I wouldn’t expect to keep her job if I were her.
Living one’s life as “material” just seems like a dead end to me.
Melissa, we have a lot to talk about. I’ve been told my lovers and friends to use a pen name also, but it would be cowardly for a non fiction writer to do so. It’s no surprising you were found out and fired, but the shaming remarks above are surprising. It really underscores the fact that most people have intrinsic shame around their sexuality and are condemning of sex work in general. By that, I really mean, people are fearful of that which they do not understand.
Also, I think it creates hostility to distinguish between legal prostitutes, porn actors, strippers and street walkers too much. There are more similarities than differences and it’s better to stand together than vilify each other. I am going to contact you to continue this discussion.
Love, Antonia
Its ironic that when you want to become a symbol of something, sometimes you become a symbol of something you never expected. I’m guessing Melissa Petro hoped to be a symbol for sex workers. Instead, all of this came out just as the movie “Waiting for Superman” was being released attacking teacher tenure. Listening to the talk radio shows this morning, Melissa has become the poster child of why teacher tenure is bad. As the prostitute-teacher who can’t be fired, she’s become example one of why are public schools are failing.
Melissa-
I wonder, who are you? You say that your former career as a stripper/prostitute, doesn’t define who you really are? Really. What did that former career bring to you other than it being, and I quote “…physically demanding, emotionally taxing and spiritually bankrupting.” You say that it is all about being more than your former job. Well is it? Will you ever be defined as someone whose former undergrad work included interviewing women who, “…reconciled their personal identities with the identity imposed upon them by their job.”, and now as an art teacher or as a former prostitute/stripper? I think it will be the latter. I think that defined you the second you stood before your former boss as that nineteen-year old girl and will envelope you like an old coat, for the rest of your life, despite your quest to do otherwise. Did you have some kind of epiphany on the stripper pole that told you that despite your decision to sell your body for money, that somehow this wouldn’t define who you are? But what kind of identity are you in search of now that you have told the world that your former career involved exchanging your body for money and exploiting yourself for the same? Redemption? Forgiveness? Self worth? Dignity?
Not judging you, just wondering. Who are you?
Last fall I studied abroad in Chiang Mai, Thailand. For four months I learned about human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children. I met many woman who were bound by sex work and others who chose it. Those who “chose” prostitution were still bound to it for money, or hopes of finding love, or supporting their families. There are numerous reasons to take part in sex work and maybe those reasons matter, maybe they don’t, but our society, our world, needs to understand the other side of these stories, the woman’s side.
I don’t believe in “once a prostitute always a prostitute.” We need to accept women who are attempting to continue their lives into areas other than sex work. Thank you for speaking out and I hope that you will continue on to teach. Sex workers are certainly not the reason public schools are failing. If anything I think that sex workers could be beneficial to the school system. They can bring to the table a softened heart, intelligence, and strength, that many other teachers don’t.
Not all people learn mixed martial arts with the hopes of actually taking on other people.
Melissa –
I admire your courage and integrity to speak out honestly, regardless of the consequences. No matter what the school system does, you will come out the better for it. The reward of being able to live fully as yourself, embracing your past as well as your present, is so much rewarding than any job can ever be. You have such a beautiful, powerful voice and I am glad that it is not fettered by fear.
Society stigmatizes and restricts sex as a means of controlling the population. Sex and power are so deeply intertwined. If society did not make sex a scarce commodity there would be no need for prostitution or other forms of sexual enterprise. Sex workers challenge the control that religious. “moral,” and legal authorities try to maintain and so they are vilified. Speak your truth, Melissa. Perhaps one day our society will attain the level of integrity that you have found.
Here is some advice on a possible new career move. You seem to take the study of sex, power and relationships very seriously. Consider studying sociology and becoming a Professor. Or become an academic librarian. WTF? Yes. Librarians aren’t what they used to be. There are plenty of us who use our lives to tell stories to the world using social media. It just depends on how “liberal” your college is. You would make a great academic librarian at a liberal arts university. You could still do your writings and the university would promote it for its intellectual examination of gender roles as it relates to the economics of sex. With your masters in MFA, you would have first hand knowledge of new writings published, and could become the writing program or English subject liasion. You could host events on the latest books and research on sex work. There are a few limitations to being an academic librarian. Show how what you do is relevant to cutting edge research on sex and you’re hired.
Sue,
I can’t speak for anyone else; but speaking for myself, I have spent twelve years of my life as a sex worker. My feeling is that now, at 30, I’m going to make it count for something; something besides truthfully being able to say I’ve had a hell of a good time 🙂
A person is not defined by their past; they are defined by what they choose to do with it.
It has nothing to do with seeking redemption nor dignity; dignity is attained by carrying oneself with pride and with honor in spite of or perhaps because of the cards life has dealt them.
Have a wonderful day,
Kelly James
I just don’t understand why people think that they have the right to judge each other. I think that I might not have made the same decisions that you did but I wasn’t in your situation so how do I know for sure? I don’t and therefore, I don’t have any right to judge. I think it is wonderful that you are open and honest about your life and your past and if you were “famous” prior to this revelation then this might be taken with a grain of salt. However, since you’re not a celebrity, per se, then it’s wrong because you didn’t have the power and status to pull such a thing off. I don’t know, I just get really tired of the whole, “I have a right to tell you how to live” attitude. Good for you for being honest and I hope that good things come to you because you deserve them!
As Sarah Says notes, I think that it is good for Melissa that she is open and honest about her life; certain secrets, for some individuals, do slowly eat at one’s soul. If her keeping her former employment as a sex worker was such a secret for Melissa it is indeed a very good thing that she has aired it. That said, what is good for an individual is unfortunately often at odds with what is good for a group – in this case, the group of individuals in charge of Melissa’s school. This situation is an interesting case study of the boundaries and classes between the public / private sector in several ways. Basically, it sounds to me as though Melissa wanted to expand the boundaries of both her public life, which in turn would require an expansion of what is socially allowed in the public sphere (which was not provided). The question of who is right is, as usual, dependent on your point of view. Melissa’s point of view was shared above quite eloquently.
For school administrators, Melissa both broke the law (all questions of the validity of prostitution laws aside) and made herself a target for anger and suspicion on the part of the parents in her community. Both of these things make her quite a bad hire. Unless she had unusually good relationships with the parents of the children she teaches, she had to know that several of those parents would become upset upon finding out her history (again, I am not siding with this point of view; I am stating a fact that I am sure Melissa was already aware of). She had to have known that with this reveal, she was essentially asking the school administrators to either spend a good amount of time and resources protecting her or to let her go. Additionally, Melissa did not choose to reveal her past after a lifetime of work and solid professional relationships, but rather chose to reveal her past after three years, which happens to coincide right with tenure. This might suggest to an administrator that either she was waiting to use her tenure as a protection to start airing her personal social agenda that is generally (publicly) not an appropriate topic for children (and yes, of course the kids would find out), or that she wanted to get relieved from classroom duty while still collecting pay. Both of these would probably seem unacceptable to an employer, though the second one would seem worse than the first.
From the point of view of a (concerned) parent, a school teacher is someone who helps your child learn, and someone whose personal life you have no interaction with (usually). There is no context for the personal life being made public / brought into the sphere of the school. The teacher is essentially a “familiar stranger” – but because they are not known on a personal level, not at all above suspicion generally. Any kind of unusual sexual behavior will immediately raise red flags in parents minds because of the teacher’s “familiar stranger” status and because children are a particularly vulnerable group.
All of this suggests to me that if Melissa really would like more social fluidity, she should be attacking the margins of where public / private life intertwine, finding ways to create more of a “grey” zone – even if that is only within her own community, or an intentional one she seeks out. If she were in a community or setting where the public / private distinction was not so clearly defined (as one commenter suggested, a librarian, perhaps) I’d bet this wouldn’t really be an issue. Whether or not it is correct for the school setting to be so stringent in it’s public / private distinctions might be up for debate, but in general, I think I prefer teachers (especially in large city schools) to keep their personal agendas to themselves.
Thank you, more than words can express, for your words. You are my hero. You are my voice. I have written a similar story. However, I wrote it as a novel with a spiritual plot. I have spent twenty-two years hiding my secret in hopes of protecting my the professional facade I have come to resent. I “googled” the topic “stripper who becomes teacher,” and your words enlightened my journey and gave me strength to stand behind my words. Thank you. You are an amazing soul.
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