Home > Rayne > Thanks for not projecting your issues onto me.

Thanks for not projecting your issues onto me.

September 24th, 2011

The other day, while bumbling around the worldwide web, I saw someone snarking on people who talk about how they “used to be” sex workers. It’s difficult to catch tone and inflection on the internet, and especially when reading strangers, but it seems as if a commonly held opinion among present day sex workers is that those of us who got out of the business feel like we’re better than those of us who are still in it. That would suggest those of us who got out and some of us still in the business believe all the drivel we’re telling the rest of the world not to believe. Like being a prostitute is shameful and gross and sex workers should be shunned from society … except when society is paying to fuck them.

For the record, and make no mistake I mean every word of this (and understand I speak only for myself):

That’s your hang-up. Not mine. 

I’m not ashamed of my prostitute past. I got out (then got back in, then got out, then got back in, ad nauseam) because for me it was an occupation of opportunity and opportunity knocked elsewhere. When I need money, like most people, I’ll take whatever carries the highest price tag. And in most cases, because prostitution was an occupation of opportunity and I mostly went at it by myself without ever being taught how to find dates and such, even a minimum wage job carried a higher price tag than selling sex. And a whole fuckload less danger to me and my children who I took care of almost entirely alone before I was committed the first time. Thank god for understanding neighbors with kids.

There has been talk of my owner selling use of me one day down the road when our personal life has settled down some, and the only thing that bothers me about that is the high STI, and especially HIV, rate in our area. The only sex workers I have a problem with are the ones who are assholes, which is how I feel about people in all professions. And I so desperately want to be sure, I’ll often give people two, three, a hundred chances before I finally write them off as assholes.

I believe that you have to know where a person comes from to understand them and it’s really not fair to judge them if you have no idea who they are. I’m not always good at not being judgmental, but I do admit when I’m wrong and apologize if necessary. It’s convincing me I’m wrong that’s the hard part.

I personally see nothing wrong with selling sex or things related to sex. While I may not be out there selling sexual services anymore, I do work for a sex toy company, write for a sex magazine, and of course blog about sex. The adult industry is a lucrative one. Sex is natural and wonderful and beautiful. And we put a price tag on everything else natural and wonderful and beautiful. Why not sex?

I feel bad for the many sex workers who are still ashamed of their profession. I know how hard that can be. I know from personal experience what society thinks of sex work and how sex workers are treated. And if you think for a second that my being out of the business affords me any advantage over people who are currently in sex work you are sadly mistaken. Even people who are now and were once prostitutes begin to treat me differently when they find out I used to hook before I met my owner. There have been a few who’ve stopped talking to me when they find out I did it willingly. I’m not sure what to read into that, so I don’t try.

I get that it’s against some religious beliefs, and to those people I say: Don’t do it and stay away from areas where it goes on, but stop trying to make the rest of us live by your moral compass.

I get that right now it’s illegal, but really, if that’s your only reason for having a problem with prostitution, then make it legal, I say. Offer sex workers who feel they need it protection for a small fee (because we have to pay the people protecting them), regulate testing and charge the dates sales tax. And then you guys can get the fuck over it already because it’s not breaking the law, it’s providing jobs for those who want to be in sex work, and it’s bringing in money.

When asked why he turns to prostitutes and porn stars when he’s looking for sex, Charlie Sheen once said in an interview, “Who wants to deal with all the small talk and nonsense? And you’re paying for something that eliminates that. And I don’t know. It makes sense to me. As long as you’re not lying to anybody. As long as you’re not lying to people, I think whatever you’re doing, there’s no children involved in, then you’re OK. But people are going to judge it, because they’re so jealous.”

And you know, that’s about the sum of it. I mean, I don’t know about eliminating the “small talk and nonsense” and people being jealous. I had just as many johns looking for the small talk and nonsense as ones just wanting to nut and be on their way. And as for sex work detractors, well… Their reasons for their beliefs are all over the place. I’m sure jealousy is somewhere among them.

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  1. September 24th, 2011 at 17:56 | #1

    Rayne,

    The only problem I have with prostitution is how often it seems to end up with women being forced into it when they don’t want to; usually as the result of drugs and/or abusive boyfriends/pimps. When you work the graveyard shift at a downtown 7-11, you meet a few working gals (to use the euphanism–as if they’re the only women who work). Some were clearly drug addled and needed something…I’m not sure what…that would get them out of whatever they were into. Others were clearly in it for the bucks (something I know because I-gasp-talked to them like people). Oddly enough, I never met a protstitute who was in it for the sex. Some of the conversations made it into All Things For All People, BTW.

    And you know what? If it were legal, it could be regulated to be safer and the pimps could be forced out of work (the government really doesn’t like competition). That, however, will take a massive reworking of our national spyche; one that is probably decades, if not centuries out. sigh

    Dave

    PS for those wondering how a conservative Christian can have such an atitude, there is nowhere in the New Testement where Jesus speaks poorly of prostitutes. In fact, the only condemnation of whores in the Old Testement is leveled against temp[le prostitutes, clearly an attack on idolatry, not sex (the same can be said of every non-insest sex law in Leviticus). Maybe I should blog on this…

  2. Jazz
    September 28th, 2011 at 14:05 | #2

    Precisely! These prostitute often end up on the the losing side with the pimps enjoying the most. Legal or nor, except for tax, it wont make any significant difference.

  3. September 28th, 2011 at 16:26 | #3

    @dweaver999 You should totally blog on this! 🙂

  4. September 30th, 2011 at 20:58 | #4

    @Jazz For the people who are in it for the wrong reasons, you’re probably right. But in my life, I’ve known many sex workers who weren’t forced into it and genuinely enjoy the work. And personally, I think they should be allowed to do that if they want without having to worry about going to jail.

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