This is a response for Bedelia, who commented profusely about sex work, house moms, and her experience as a hooker for ten years on an earlier piece I wrote for The Rumpus.
In October 2010, I met a man in a lobby named Joe and spent nearly twenty-four hours in the Los Angeles County Jail on a prostitution charge.
In the holding cell, a beautiful Hispanic eighteen-year-old girl asked me, “Are you a prostitute?” Her brown eyes were pools of dark chocolate. She reminded me of girls I stripped with back in San Francisco when I was a bald, lesbian feminist, ready to take down the patriarchy with my pierced septum, blubbery thighs, and my self-righteous anger.
“Do I look like a prostitute?” I sat on a metal bench, squished between two women, knee to knee. A black girl who’d been hooking since she was twelve was asleep with her head on my lap.
“There are five black women, a Hispanic woman, and you. You’re a prostitute,” she said. She turned around and hopped up on a ledge and looked out the tiny window, then back to me.
“Why are you a prostitute?” she asked. Her voice was just above a whisper. I chewed my lip.
“That’s a good question,” I said. If she were Andrea Dworkin, she’d accuse me of being a brainwashed drone of the patriarchy, succumbing to violence against women. But I’d never thought of myself as a prostitute. I’d never been a streetwalker or a call girl; never worked for an agency or pimp.
There was a loud buzz. The door was released. A muscular Hispanic butch with one very long braid walked in and hugged the gorgeous Hispanic lesbian. When they kissed, the cell heated up but made my throat itch, and the rest of the women coughed. The lovers had gotten in a bar fight and were covered in pepper spray. The black girls who were busted for pandering and prostitution told me to apply for O.R. This meant since I’d never been arrested before I could possibly be released without bail. They settled in and knew the ropes and followed procedure. One made a call for me to ask about my release.
Hours later, we were escorted upstairs. Told to stand against a wall. The light was dead and yellow. We were handed scratchy blankets, which were more like tarps. The jailers snatched my black tights and stuck them in a Ziploc bag, to prevent me from strangling myself with them. I coughed into to my hands.
I was buzzed into a cell where there was a woman asleep in the bunk below on a green cold exercise mat, with her clear stripper shoes on the floor below her.
The worst were the sounds inside: yelling, buzzing, coughing, and lights clicking on and off. I climbed on my top bunk where there were scribbles on the ceiling from polished nails. Words carved into the wall: “I love you, Mom.”
The only light was through a mail slot that looked out into the center of a room that had a payphone. Over a loud- speaker, names were called for court, but not mine. I rang the buzzer. My breaths were shallow. “Guess you’re staying till Monday, too,” my cellmate said.
“Stop ringing the bell or I’ll leave you in there,” a jailer barked through the speaker. Hours passed. Breakfast was dropped through the mail slot. I ate a sausage patty, then fell asleep under my jacket that smelled like sweat and vanilla. After a few minutes of silence, the skinny black tattooed prostitute stirred in the bunk below me.
She said “Fuck, fuck.” The layers of hell slowly sunk in: I was going to miss my flight to New York. My cats weren’t going to be fed. My car was going to be towed. My rent was going to be late and I was in a cage.
***
Photo by Alison Dyer.
46 responses
Sex work is such a strange topic because, on the one hand, it’s just work. I waited tables for years often working 12 hour shifts on my feet and many of the complaints I’ve seen from Antonia (aching body, blighted creativity, emotional weariness from being the perfect receptor for strangers’ demands, etc.) I can relate to from my waiter experience. After all, a stripper isn’t too different from a waiter in some ways.
But, of course, sex is different. For one thing, the clients’ demands are so much more rapacious. No one kidnaps and abuses young people to force them into a life of waiting tables (I think). For another thing, the sacrifice being made by the worker is so much more intensely personal and this can be psychologically disturbing (I think). Then we have the fact that society views sex work differentlu, which takes a toll on the worker’s life both internally (as Bedelia’s describes) and externally (as Antonia describes in this piece).
And I want to view sex work in a very tolerant way– it’s just work like any other and there is no reason to pass judgment on anyone. But Bedelia’s comments give the lie to that blithe fantasy. What’s an enlightened person to think?
I’m still interested in why the writer is a prostitute, she didn’t really address the question which is the title of the piece. Perhaps I am being too literal, but I assume that after being in jail the writer is wondering the same thing?
I’m glad Antonia is bringing our attention to the fact that prostitutes are jailed regularly. In Sweden, Norway, and Denmark prostitutes aren’t jailed, they are seen as people who need social services, and are connected to help and sustenance. In these Scandinavian countries prostitution is illegal, but it is not illegal to BE a prostitute. It’s illegal to use or pander a prostitute. The Johns then are less inclined to use prostitutes, which lowers the demand. This lowers the motivation for pimps to engage in trafficking or coerce women into prostitution, although they will always do it. But this law has led to less women working as prostitutes, and more women leaving meaningful, dignified lives.
Antonia, I’m grateful to you for drawing attention to the hell that jail can be. A prostitute died in an Arizona jail during the summer of 2009,becauase she was kept in a cage in the scorching heat.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526132,00.html
The jailing of prostitues is tragic — it makes it harder for them to get away from the pimps. It’s state-sanctioned abuse on top of the abuse they endure in the sex industry. When you’re a prostitute you learn very early that society is complicit in the terrible things that happen to you. It makes it nearly impossible to reach out for help.
Antonia, you mentioned that prostitutes and panderers were in the same cell. In my experience (I know yours is different) there’s a huge psychic gulf between the two. Most prostitutes will scrupulously refuse to accept any money that results from another women’s exploitation — by which I mean her having sex with a man she’s afraid of for their profit. Think of a vegan refusing leather shoes — it’s the same kind of strong reaction. Women panderers almost always work in tandem with the mafia and violent pimps.
Thanks again for this piece.
I don’t really know, as I haven’t interviewed enough sex workers about this question specifically, but I have known quite a few thru my former career as a drug dealer, and it seems to be that most of them got into it for the same reason I got into selling drugs-the pay was good, you get to be your own boss and to an extent control your destiny. I remember the pride I felt when after multiple failures at everything from musician to longshoreman I discovered I was good at selling dope. I knew it was unhealthy, and that it might end badly (which is pretty much did), but finding a place in the world and an identity, and being good at what you do cannot be underestimated as a motivation, and I’m sure it’s the same for many sex workers
Sex work is in many ways like any other work – there are good work environments, bad work environments, people who are happily self-employed and people who are horribly, horribly exploited. Aaron, you mention that no one kidnaps people and forces them into waiting tables. That may be true, but people are often forced into the clothing manufacturing industry and housekeeping industry, often through threat of violence or deportation. Having lived for many years in the SF Bay area, I can recall several instances of homes in which people, often minors, were kept as indentured servants. And the South of Market area was notorious in the 80s & 90s for its sewing sweatshops, again exploiting often underage immigrants through the force & manipulations of organized crime.
Equating sex work to human trafficking and exploitation is not an entirely true construct. I’ve known sex workers who have used their careers to put themselves through top universities, purchase their first home and establish better opportunities for their kids. They were fully in control of their choices and never felt exploited or endangered. Granted, their experiences are unique to them and none of them worked at ‘street-level’ or had pimps. But I have to wonder how much of the exploitation is the result of criminalization, creating a shadowy, secretive situation where sex workers are not allowed to set their own boundries and control their own choices.
Thank you Patrick, You’re echoing my thoughts above. The reasons I became a sex worker are complex and can’t be covered in a brief comment section on The Rumpus, Laurel. You’ll have to wait for my book to come out. I did refer to my situation as “constrained choice” which is much different than anything resembling slavering or kidnapping. I was hooked on drugs and needed money. I was also enrolled in a high-falutin all girls college. It was the 90’s and stripping was considered performance art. I’ve seen talented, acrobatic, empowered dancers put themselves through law school and I’ve seen 19-year old runaway junkies in strip clubs. Aaron makes a good point also: working for myself and carving out time to write is paramount. I’ve had many other careers and jobs and have made the choice to stick to sex work for now. I do wish to get out. I haven’t dug my way out yet.
Antonia here you’re talking about stripping which is not the same as prostitution. According to other things you’ve written here, you entered the business first as a stripper. If you haven’t seen coercive situations in prostituion it’s probably because since you were working as an HIV consultant and attending an MFA degree program, you were at the very outer edges of the business. There is an extremely strong correlation between trafficking and prostituton because after all, they serve the same business. It’s the same clients, the same people profitting.
Antonia I am deeply disappointed that on the comment thread you link to above you referred readers to the Mary Magdalene Foundation which is run by a woman who was arrested for pimping women to members of the LAPD. Her arrested was based on a recording where she was heard offering the services of a prostitute to an LAPD officer.
Prostitutes would NEVER trust an organization run by a pimp, male or female, even if they do try to use some of its services. It’s an old scam — open an organization supposedly helping vulnerable, traumatized prostitutes — giving you access to women you can pimp and profit on. Then collect money from well meaning donors who have no idea what’s going on. It’s a fox in the henhouse situation.
Antonia, if you want to get out of prostitution, I’d love to support you in this. I give the Rumpus permission to give you my email address and you can contact me directly. I know you can do it. If I did it, anyone can. One of the most important things to do is involve yourself in practices that focus on healing your body, such as yoga, yamuna massage, feldenkries, alexander technique. Spiritual practice is incredibly helpful.
But frankly it’s hard for me to imagine someone with a column in a cutting edge intellectual online journal and an mfa actually being ‘in’ prostitution. You are promoting your book here, obviously.
Antonia I really enjoy this essay.
Bedelia, I’ve read all of your comments and I don’t really understand what point you’re trying to make? Do you disbelieve that there are many many differing narratives from current and former sex workers? Are you trying to save Antonia from something? Why is it so hard to believe that someone who does things other than sex work in this case prostitution could have a column in a cutting edge intellectual online journal?
From this entry specifically I’d honestly be hard pressed to view this as some kind of book sales pitch. I’m finding your comments really confusing.
Bedelia, you seem to be conflating an MFA with guaranteed earning potential, as you repeatedly refer to it in both this post and the previous one as a way to deny Ms. Crane’s “authenticity” as a sex worker. It appears that you believe having a degree in literature means she isn’t REALLY engaged in the sex industry and is merely dabbling as a thrill-seeker. This carries some many loaded assumptions about class, I don’t even know where to begin.
Many people with MFAs work in the sex industry precisely BECAUSE it pays better than many of the opportunities available to people w/ arts degrees. Add the tens of thousands of dollars in loans one has to pay back and the flexible schedule one needs to complete course work, and sex work appears to be a perfect solution for those with an arts education.
Your personal story is horrific and I understand that many are hurt and exploited within the industry. But you seem to be proposing that those whose experience, class or education level is different than yours are somehow inauthentic or disingenuous. As a white male who was raised middle-class and who sucked his way through his first year of art college because it was my best (and most realistic) financial option, I find this, frankly, offensive and belittling. I was young, smart, well-spoken and had great SAT scores. I also wasn’t getting financial support from my family yet couldn’t get school aid because of my parents’ income level. Sex work gave me a way to improve myself. I don’t regret it and don’t feel victimized by my choices. And, while I may not match your ‘idea’ of what constitutes a prostitute, my experiences were no less real than yours. Neither are Ms. Crane’s.
Bedelia, you seem to be conflating an MFA with guaranteed earning potential, as you repeatedly refer to it in both this post and the previous one as a way to deny Ms. Crane’s “authenticity” as a sex worker. It appears that you believe having a degree in literature means she isn’t REALLY engaged in the sex industry and is merely dabbling as a thrill-seeker. This carries so many loaded assumptions about class, I don’t even know where to begin.
Many people with MFAs work in the sex industry precisely BECAUSE it pays better than many of the opportunities available to people w/ arts degrees. Add the tens of thousands of dollars in loans one has to pay back and the flexible schedule one needs to complete course work, and sex work appears to be a perfect solution for those with an arts education.
Your personal story is horrific and I understand that many are hurt and exploited within the industry. But you seem to be proposing that those whose experience, class or education level is different than yours are somehow inauthentic or disingenuous. As a white male who was raised middle-class and who sucked his way through his first year of art college because it was my best (and most realistic) financial option, I find this, frankly, offensive and belittling. I was young, smart, well-spoken and had great SAT scores. I also wasn’t getting financial support from my family yet couldn’t get school aid because of my parents’ income level. Sex work gave me a way to improve myself. I don’t regret it and don’t feel victimized by my choices. And, while I may not match your ‘idea’ of what constitutes a prostitute, my experiences were no less real than yours. Neither are Ms. Crane’s.
She is dabbling as a thrillseeker. As are you. You are all artists using this to hype yourselves. MOre power to you, but don’t whitewash the truth. Acknowledge that you are dabbling at the edges. Make it a part of your art, your identity. Tackle the questions that lead to the heart of it.
I worked for ten years as a hooker in NYC and I NEVER knew one person with an MFA.
The vanity in these responses to my posts floor me. Everyone’s experience is authentic, I never said it wasn’t. But there’s a big difference between describing your experience and hyping yourself as an exemplar when you’re not. What if I went to Sudan and lived in a refugee camp with the lost boys and wrote about how cool their life was, identifying myself as one of them? When I’m a white female American citizen at least ten years their senior? That would be outrageous.
Forgive me Patrick, but I have been speaking of women’s experiences in prostitution, not men’s. It doesn’t trouble me that a smart, young, well-spoken man with great SAT scores feels belittled by my posts about the plight of abused, exploited women. Only the very privileged come from a world view which allows them to see themselves as nonvictim or victim. Everyone else is struggling to survive, to get through. Victim/nonvictim is a bourgeois conceit or a justification for doing nothing about another’s mistreatment.
Because I’m a white American citizen I was extremely lucky compared to most women in prostitution. This gave me a huge advantage in terms of being able to get out, to see less brutal clients. Women of color had it ten times worse than I did, as did the women who started younger than I did, at ages 14, 15, or 16.
When I discuss prostitution (it’s not sex work) I believe one of my greatest responsibilities is to remind people of the ones who didn’t make it out.
I certainly can’t imagine thinking about whether or not I was a victim, whether or not I feel belittled by the statements of someone using comments to cry out for awareness and help for the women still trapped in the cycle of torture-like abuse. Especially if I was a man and the discussion was about women.
I certainly wouldn’t see it as an occasion to talk about my SAT scores. I’d be overwhelmingly cognizant that many of the women who didn’t get out are better people than I am. I’d think many of them probably would have been smarter than me if they’d had some of my chances.
I had a friend, brilliant, who was a hustler. He had a pimp who made him think because he was lower class he needed to ‘improve’ himself by sleeping with obnoxious men who treated him like garbage. Men who wanted to exploit the young and struggling. He died of AIDS. Every day I miss him.
“I am really a woodcarver
and my words are love
which willfully parades in the room
refuing to move”
wrote Frank O’Hara.
Bedelia, this debate could go a lot of different directions, starting with the definition of prostitution, but I’ll spare you that. Personally, I prefer the term sex worker, Because it’s more accurate since I’ve had many jobs within the sex industry for 19 years now. Also, I’m insulted that you think that I’m not a real sex worker (or prostitute) because I have a graduate degree. There are so many women out there with degrees who have stripped or done porn. It’s not so far fetched. You have incorrect information about Norma Jean Almodovar, who runs Coyote LA, not Mary Magdeline house. NJA was with the LAPD for over 12 years and wrote a manuscript exposing the corruption within the police department. She became a call girl after she left the department. In an effort to confiscate her book, they arranged a sting operation using her best friend as a decoy. They got her on a pandering charge (mandatory sentence) and they stole her manuscript. It was very highly publicized and NJA is a pro-sex work feminist. Her organization COYOTE is well known for the rehabilitation and harm-reduction counseling for sex workers in LA and SF. I spoke with her for several hours about what to expect with my case. Do your homework.
As for promoting my book. It’s not published and it’s not done, so that’s a mute point, isn’t it?
I will however take the opportunity to promote an informative, terrific resource for sex workers is http://www.myhoneysuckle.com/.
P.S. I’m not looking to be rescued.
Wow, Bedelia, thanks for making my point.
Shannon, you don’t understand what point I’m trying to make? Antonia prefaces this essay by saying it’s a ‘gift’ to me, and links to my comments.
I’m involved in this at an elemental level.
Antonia you misled us about NJA. She was pimping a woman to a member of the LAPD. You told us she was arrested becaus she wrote a book. You’re suggesting people who want to help prostitutes donate money to a woman who pimps them.
COYOTE is a horrible organization full of pimps and hookers are afraid of it.
Since you have no experience with pimp (!) perhaps you don’t know this. I do and I will not stand by and listen to this BS without saying something.
I never mentioned rescuing you, I mentioned supporting you in any way possible should you need it. But of course, your comments weren’t sincere about ‘wanting’ to get out. You’re hyping your book darling.
Patrick it amazes me that you aren’t embarrassed about what you’ve written.
COYOTE is a sham, and dangerous to hookers. All the members are johns or pimps or madams. I speak from personal experience.
Norma Jean Almodovar is a madam. A recording was made of her offering the services of a prostitute (NOT NJA) to an LAPD officer. She actually did it. NJA would profit from this woman’s exploitation. She is a huge sham and harmful to hookers.
Antonia the vanity of your response astounds me. I never said your experience wasn’t authentic and I wouldn’t have a problem with it if you would display a little less narcissism and a little more sense of responsibility to the much less fortunate women working with you. Or did you ‘work’ so little you can’t even see them?
okay, so the gains and costs of doing sex work depend so so much on the environment, the rules in place there, the people involved, etc. i can’t imagine anyone arguing that being a prostitute at, say, the old mustang ranch takes roughly the same toll as being an upscale escort in Manhattan, or a call girl at The Palms, or any sex worker, anywhere, who’s dependent on a ruthless (or benevolent?) pimp, manager, organization, whatever. and it’s not just about the kind or degree of violence encountered in the different environments. it’s about how the individual sex worker feels about herself doing the work where, when & how she’s doing it. there’s no way the work isn’t going to affect how she sees herself, and how she sees herself is going to affect how she thinks and acts. OF COURSE antonia is in a privileged position. doesn’t mean she’s more or less of a sex worker. but bedelia’s background and the sacrifices she made are not the same.
Bedelia,
You said Antonia was “dabbling as a thrill seeker.” How is that anything but a claim that her experience is unauthentic?
Brian, Antonia’s experience of dabbling in prostitution is authentic. It’s very funny how people seem to think I’m denying ‘prostitute authenticity’ to Antonia. As if it’s some kind of prize. Yeesh. This reminds me a little of kids playing dressup, and everyone wants to wear the crown. It’s not a crown people.
There’s no shame in dabbling for Pete’s sake. It’s just a different animal than being in the life as I was. How can I say Antonia’s experience is unathentic? That’s like saying she doesn’t exist. I don’t see the idea of dabbling or thrill seeking as negative, shameful qualities, far from it. IF that’s the way it’s being interpreted, let me withdraw the term and say that Antonia works on the nether edges of the business. A radical lesbian feminist with a shaved head and sleeve tattoos is not going to be someone pimps gravitate towards. Her experience is on another planet compared to that of most prostitutes.
But she is authentic, her writing is authentic, her experience is authentic. I’m posting here not to invalidate Antonia’s writing. She’s gifted. I’m just speaking up for the women I worked alongside who were murdered or died because of the business, the ones that were and are tortured by pimps, trapped in a living death. There are millions of these women, and they deserve to be thought of. Silence equals complicity and death.
A says, un my experience there are NO benevolent pimp/managers. THe word manager is a euphemism — they are all pimps. I was in the life for ten years, and I never met, saw or heard of one. But there are thousands of pimps who want you to think they are benevolent ‘managers.’ Because if you realize their beating, torturing the women they profit from, they might be put out of business.
Brian, do you live for poetry? I do. I’m trying to speak of important stuff like poetry or helping vulnerable young women being raped and beaten as I type this. I’m speaking up for these women, not dissing Antonia. OK?
Like a rose rabbi later I pursued
And still pursue the origin and course of love
But until now I never knew
That fluttering things have so distinct a shade.
–Wallace Stevens, from Le Monocle de Mon Oncle
Claims of authenticity, debates over degrees of oppression, and locating oneself as the true voice of the victimized always makes me suspect.
I have never heard Antonia claim to be any of these. She is being descriptive of her experiences and the experiences of those she has encountered and not prescriptive of anybody elses. I feel her work contains a heroic amount of vulnerability and honesty while steadfastly refusing an easy out of a victim mentality.
Bedelia, your views on the issues of sex work are vital and informed by your life experiences, but just because Antonia’s may differ in some respects, it doesn’t make her views any less important or make her a “dabbler.” The issue of sex work and the state needs wider debate, not territorial pissings and patronizing anti-intellectualism.
The greater the number and diversity of voices we get on the issue the better. Keep up the great work and the great writing Antonia.
I need to address Bedelia’s claims about Scandinavia. First of all, it’s still legal to pay for sex in Denmark, but she’s right about Sweden and more recently Norway. However, although the so-called ‘Swedish model’ is promoted as a positive and progressive stance, it greatly disadvantages and disempowers women in the sex industry – most of all those who were already disempowered: those with addictions, those who have no other choice, those who are the most abused and exploited.
What happens to demand is that the ‘normal’ clients are scared off by the legislation. Sex workers – whose need to make money has not magically gone away! – are then faced with accepting the creepy/violent clients they would previously have turned down. They’re faced to agreeing to acts that they would previously not have performed. There’s more competition, and they’re faced with lowering their prices. As a result, they’re liable to work for longer hours, and in greater isolation because it’s their clients who need to avoid being seen by the police. Their support networks are broken up and it’s harder for them to communicate and look out for one another.
I explained this during a Q&A once, and a woman said “So you’re saying it is possible to reduce demand?” I was horrified that that was all she was taking away from what I was saying. Surely no-one can consider it a success to so greatly increase the vulnerability of the very women that this legislation is supposed to help. I am very, very concerned about the promotion of this legislation, which prioritises ‘sending a message’ over women’s actual safety. Safety should come first, not ideology.
What a beautiful and vivid piece, Antonia. It reads to me like a chapter. I want to read the next one.
Yes, it’s a beautiful piece, and seems to be the heart of something larger. I would like to read more too.
I think although Antonia doesn’t directly answer why she’s a prostitute in this piece, she evokes a core possible answer when she discusses starting in the business as a radical lesbian stripper with a shaved head who wanted to attack patriarchy with her thighs (paraphrasing of course, Antonia put it better than that). She also reveals a deep empathetic connection with the women, the ones who are much worse off than her, who she wants to nurture, as well as appreciation of the strength and beauty of the love between the lesbian couple. It’s always amazing to see desert flowers — growing in such deprivation and heat.
It feels she wants to be with and exsperience what these women experience, share their suffering, their terrible fugitive beauty. She also wants to tell their story.
FWIW I don’t see Bedelia as questioning anyone’s authenticity. She was put in a rather unusual situation, with Antonia linking to her comments, and telling her this column was a gift to her. A beautiful gesture.
But that gesture included Antonia telling Bedelia on the comments page that it wasn’t the fault of the sex industry that Bedelia had been abused and tortured by pimps and clients. And Antonia probably quite innocently linked to an organization that Bedelia knew to be run by pimps. So Bedelia’s put in the position of having to clarify what COYOTE really is, and surely she’d feel she needs to respond to the idea that it wasn’t the sex industry’s ‘fault’ she’d experienced such trauma.
I bet she didn’t even really have a chance to take in Antonia’s lovely writing after that.
If you read through her comments, she’s not questioning Antonia’s authenticity. She just feels very strongly she needs to speak up for her sisters. I think the defensive reactions of commenters against Bedelia come mostly from the misconception that she’s denying the authenticity of others.
I don’t see her trying to claim any turf, after all she’s an anonymous commenter even as she shares a powerful experience. I don’t think she’s patronizing or anti-intellectual. She sounds pretty smart to me.
The term dabbling didn’t come from Belinda originally, it came from Patrick.
What’s most important here is that Antonia knows the authenticity of her story. No one can take that from her (and really, Bedelia isn’t doing that). She can make something beautiful and meaningful from her experience, put it out in the world, and that’s what she did with thsi essay.
I believe the question “Why am I a Prostitute” is at the core of a very important work we’ll one day see from Antonia. I’m already captivated.
I hope by now a few have figured out that I’m the lady who dusts the furniture, draws the drapes, changes the towels, and bakes lemon meringue pie. The name that rhymes with I feel ya. Antonia you have a unique, strong voice. Please keep writing. I look forward to more.
I’m for you, Bedelia. I’m not against Antonia, but I think people are getting defensive for no reason.
As long as one woman is suffering, we are all suffering. It’s something worth addressing.
I love the Wallace Stevens quote.
Words have meaning, so the “defensiveness” is not for no reason, it’s because words like “dabbler” conveys a judgement that the person being addressed is an amateur, and does not have a good understanding of the subject at hand. I disagree with that assessment.
I don’t think anyone, especially Antonia is dismissing anyones suffering.
I’ve spent the last hour reading and rereading these two articles and the comments to gain enough context to feel like a comment from me would make any sense. Maybe it makes no sense… but here it is anyway.
I have worked with young teenagers at a residential treatment facility who were sold into prostitution. They were beautiful, vibrant, angry, and sometimes dangerous young women. I don’t know where they are today, but I fear they may have returned to be part of the prostitution/sex worker machine when running away from, or leaving treatment.
I often think of these girls (13,14,15) and I wonder if they are even alive.
My removed experience, only through what I learned from theirs, haunts me. So I think Bedelia is having a valid response via her life experience, and remembering the others she knew who were lost/murdered/not as lucky as she to survive and try to build a life out of the ruins.
But I also don’t think that Antonia’s experience, which she has shared so openly and with such grace, is any less traumatic for her as a person than anyone else’s. They are exactly that… separate experiences. Why do we have to compare the two as if it is some kind of contest of who is more “authentic”?
I would like the Rumpus or someone to find out whether the resources these women have offered (websites, names, advocates) are safe and or valid. At this point everything is hearsay. I don’t know if girls who are looking for help will be reading this column or not. But if they are, I wish the facts were straight.
I do come from a place of privilege and have not either chosen to experience these things, or been forced to experience them.
I am deeply humbled by the stories and debates brought about by these pieces and comments. I hope the Rumpus finds a way to keep issues like these as part of an expanding conversation. I hope the conversation continues with more voices heard and more people educated about the underbelly of the sex industry in America, as well as the women who through personal empowerment or limited choices claim sex work as a means to an end, or a life choice.
I hope the girls I knew are safe right now. I hope they are in high school somewhere, studying, making friends, and healthy. But I don’t know… and I probably never will.
The above argument reminds me of people who tell me that I am not “Jewish enough”. OR when my black friends talk about the “level of blackness” in another person. UGH. I think respecting each other’s experiences is the thing. Being the person who is THE MOST persecuted doesn’t win you any awards, yet, here we are, arguing over the technicalities and levels of sex work, which unfortunately is taking away from the beauty and power of the piece, which is stunning. Thanks for writing it.
Heck, even if Antonia is just “dabbling” in prostitution, that’s more than most of us will ever do, and as such, something worth reading about. Antonia did essentially “call out” Bedelia by naming her in the introduction, though, which maybe wansn’t a great idea, and was definitely unnecessary. The article stands on its own just fine.
i think it’s beautiful (Antonia’s essay). i got absorbed with the comments and didn’t say the most important thing!
Actually, I never claimed to be the most persecuted. I was simply trying to clarify that Antonia’s experience as a prostitute was rather unusual compared to that of most prostitutes. I think she’s a fascinating writer, and have never said otherwise.
Rose, I agree with you that the Rumpus should be researching when links are posted about getting help re the sex business. I’ve been dismayed to see suggest people donate to the Sex WOrkers outreach project, which is run by a woman named Robyn Few who has been arrested for pimping other women. On the website she tells it as a big persecution by John Ashcroft story, which is ridiculous. If you read the fine print, she wasn’t working as a prostitute herself (an identity she loudly assumes, although supposedly she started as a prostiute around age 38, which is really old for the business, laughable, in terms of the truth factor. I think she strated pimping at age 38.
http://www.swopusa.org/en/node/192
Pimps are very good about being chameleons — to fit in with an activist crowd, you justify your arrest by claiming government oppression. Pimps are first and formost liars. The Sex Workers Outreach Project is run by a female pimp posing as someone who empowers prostitute, when she exploits them.
An additional problematic organization which the Rumpus has linked to both for donations and as a suggestion as a place for traumatized hookers to go for help is COYOTE. COYOTE is an organization of pimps and johns and madams (and madams pretending to be hookers). No hooker would feel safe in such an organization, and she would likely immediately be exploited.
Here is Norma Jean Almodovar’s apologia for her conviction of pandering — I find it completely laughable — what is a fact is that she was convicted of pandering:
•On September 17th, 1983, her unfinished manuscript was confiscated by the police and she was arrested an a charge of pandering. The charge stemmed from her attempt to fulfill the alleged sex fantasy of a former friend who was still a traffic officer. The “friend” Penny Isgro, was wired, and later admitted during the trial that she had done this to try to prevent Norma Jean from writing an expose of the Los Angeles Police. Through the perhaps deliberate incompetence of her then attorney (whom she later successfully sued) she was given no defense at all during her trial, and as a result, was convicted of the one count of pandering.
THe above is from this website, a paeon to NJA which I find nauseating:
http://server.theadvocates.org/celebrities/norma-almodovar.html
It’s also a pro-libertarian website. All I can say is remember Ron Paul and those highly suspect fundraisers who like white sheets.
I think Antonia was completely unaware of this. She interviewed Norma Jean Almodovar and doubtless heard NJA’s shtick. NJA is a very cool customer.
These are all old tricks, and not so far what from typical pimp behavior, which involves physical abusing and holding you against your will then trying to win your loyalty when you’ve moved into a stockholm syndrome situation. I think the ‘activist’ angle works well in California and NY, especially when one is trying to reacher babyboomer clients.
Y’all should check out Antonia’s blog — there’s so riveting posts about her time in Bombay which poses another answer to her above question.
The Madam-Prostitute Divide and Why it Matters
Because women working as prostitutes have experienced such violence at the hands of the people they work for in one way or another, there is a strong “group think” about madams. Hookers don’t see madams as friends, or people like them. They see them as abusers, as people who have enslaved them and are profiting off of their misfortune to a terrible degree. As a result there’s a code among hookers to never profit from another woman’s prostitution. For example, the phone girls booking appointments sometimes get a share of the money just as the pimp or madam does. If a working call girl or hooker in a house is answering the phones she will scrupulously refuse any money paid by another prostitute. So any organization that welcomes “madams” is not a safe place for prostitutes.
The scourge of pimps and madams posing as prostitute outreach: Such situations are extremely common. Madams pose as advocates for prostitutes and actually get federal money that is supposed to help prostitutes. Often such “outreach” organization are run by a pimp and madam who claim to have found God — usually they pocket federal money while intimidating and recruiting the women. After I got out of “the business” I volunteered to work in a van that went through the Bronx doing outreach to drug-addicted prostitutes working the streets (I wanted to do something anything to help my sisters, even though it was a very different branch of the business). There was a doctor who had gotten a big AIDS grant to test the blood of hookers for HIV, and then she got another grant to do outreach while the blood-testing was happening. The people working in the van included a smalltime madam who tried to recruit me, and a man who wrote pornography, propositioned me, and used the prostitutes during our stops. This was all federally-funded by the NIH. I talked to the doctor about this, but she was so concerned with not being sexually judgmental to anyone (including the Johns and madam), that she couldn’t see how unsafe such a situation would feel to women working as hookers. It’s a funny situation that has happened more than a few times: I’m trying to explain to a well-meaning person why something is unsafe for hookers, and it results in their dismissing me as judgmental or a prude, even though I’ve slept with thousands of men and worked as a hooker for ten years. You can’t make this stuff up.
Frankly, part of what makes Antonia’s writing so fascinating is that her experience as a prostitute is so UNtypical and unusual. Stripping with a shaved head as a radical lesbian feminist is wild and compelling.
Rose, I so appreciate your post, and your concern for the girls you worked with.
Regarding your questions on outreach organizations — there are two such organizations in California I know of where the founders were convicted of pandering, which is pimping.
The founder of the Sexworkers Outreach Project Robyn Few was convicted of pandering.
The leader of COYOTE in Cal, Norma Jean Almodovar, was convicted of pandering.
If you to a search of their names and pander you can confirm this.
I would strongly recommend not referring hookers seeking help to these organizations, nor would I donate to them.
Rose, I meant if you DO a google search of these women’s names and the word pander, you can confirm these convictions. XO
Mr. Zenpocho:
Just so you know, I’m the lady who’s name begins with B and rhymes with I feel ya.
Regarding your assessment as to whether the pack-defensiveness was an appropriate reaction, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you suggested Bedelia was a patronizing anti-intellectual after she’d quoted Frank O’Hara, Rainer Maria Rilke and Wallace Stevens.
Pax.
I’m with Sugar. This is an evocative vignette, and I’m excited to see more of it.
A couple things:
1) So what if Antonia was writing a blog and publishing on the Rumpus to promote an upcoming book? How would y’all go about promoting an upcoming book? Personally, I would write a blog and publish pieces on whatever publications I could.
I have no idea if she is or is not as I don’t know her, but I am sick and tired of the asenine assumption that if someone is writing a book it somehow de-authenticates the experiences one is writing about.
Welcome to capitalism (the unknown ideal). Promoting one’s work is a positive thing, not something to be looked down upon for!
2) Nine – I couldn’t have said it better. The Swedish Model is awful; detrimental to both sex workers and society as a whole.
3) NEITHER NORMA JEAN ALMODOVAR NOR ROBIN FEW nor their respective organizations, SWOP and COYOTE have anything at all to do with pimps! If anyone would like proof look at my blogroll and ask the individuals you find there.
This wins the “Ignorance Of The Week” award.
Who told you that hookers are afraid of them anyway? Let me guess – your pimp!!! Gee, wonder why that could be….Seems as if you oughta know by now that your pimp was lying to you.
That’s all I’m gonna say…I smell trolls and don’t wanna be driven to feed on them.
see my comment on Antonia’s other article for further realistic info https://therumpus-production.mystagingwebsite.com/2010/11/recession-sex-workers-12-miss-marty-mother-of-strippers/comment-page-1/#comment-91521
KJ/sincerelykelly.com
I don’t know, but does anybody out there also feel this is very very sad?
Oh and transitions between ideas/action need to be worked on as well.
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