Hello and welcome to Behind a Vada Podcast from me, Paulson Victoria. So I have actually recorded this episode um a good few days ago and the episode after this, but for whatever reason my recorder just did not pick up any noise and I have no idea what went wrong because um I wanted to pre-record a few episodes because I've had like quite a busy week uh with multiple in-session person bookings and a client paid for me to go out to the Orkney Islands and I was like, oh yay! So quite quite busy for the past few days. So this episode will not be coming to you on a Fedday, sadly. I am like quite bent out right now because I do handle like everything, and we must remind ourselves as human beings, being burn out is absolutely fine, perfectly normal, especially if you're nervous spicy. You can get really bent out really quickly, and with myself, I like do so much every single day. Like multiple people who I'd speak to are like, you do five things in the morning, and I'm like, Yeah, before like eight and stuff, and like I need to, so like I I can get bent out pretty quickly, but especially filming the podcast, editing the podcast, doing the social media for the podcast, and then working alongside of that, and then also being a mother um of my beautiful child, and also having five dogs, and yeah, handling the social media as well with my um in-person job and social media job because I also do like Scoutbook um and Dark Friends as we have spoken about if you do want to go see the spicier version of behind the paddle now. But yeah, a little bit of a rant there, but yeah, it's absolutely normal to be burnt out. I just wanted to say that and talk about that just for a little minute. Um, we are going to continue with Revolting Prostitutes, The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights by Molly Smith and Juno Mack. You're intentionally misleading the public. The implication seems to be that to quote legitimately be a survivor requires you to agree with certain politics around the sex industry. Those who support the decriminalization of commercialized sex are cast as quote illegitimate survivors. For anti-prostitution feminists, survivors who advocate decriminalization constitute a category that cannot or should not exist. Those who experience sex work as miserable, violent or exploitative, but continue doing it are left politically befripped. Pushed out by pro-sex politics in the sex worker movement and invisible to brackets or strategically unacknowledged by carceral feminists who consider the only legitimate victim to be one who has exited or will immediately exit prostitution. As Canadian prostitute and writer Sarah Mann argues, unhappy whores are stuck seeking political representation among either a camp that disenvows their experiences or a camp that disenvows their rights. While the idea of selling sex as joyful sexuality is entirely at odds with the experiences of most prostitutes, we are not arguing for the focus on the sexual act to be completely discarded. By the end of the following chapter, the tension between understanding sex work as sex and understanding sex work as work will become clearer. As sex worker Pluma Sumac writes, looking at the sexual nature of prostitution is essential to understanding prostitution. How could it not be? Intimacy, sex and sexuality not only activate some of our deepest fears, but also some of our deepest woundings. Prostitution presents us with a reality that is sometimes too emotionally painful to unravel, because as we attempt to do so, we begin to realize that it is our reality too. Sex and intimacy are personally also our own struggle. Being critical about sex positivity in the sex worker movement should not mean pretending sex is incidental. We can explore the sexual experiences of people in the sex trade in a way that respects the diversity of those experiences, whether they are bad or good, and doesn't overwhelm the conversation about labour rights. Thinking about sex work only as sex also allows any survivor of any sexual violence to claim the brackets real or imagined trauma of sex workers as their own. In an article about brothel work in Germany, journalist Sarah Dittham inputs that a sex worker named Josie is experiencing daily trauma based on the disclosure that she brings numbing cream to work in case a client is heavy handed with a vibrator. In response, Dittham writes Prostitution is an institution that insists on the dehumanitization of women, the grinding away of our souls, so we become easier to fuck, easier to use, easier to kill. The use of we and are suggests that the experience of a sex worker, in this case Josie, are a struggle shared with all women. Of course the same cannot be said in reverse. Women's liberation is not always shared with prostitutes. So eager is she to link her own feelings to the vibrator story that Dittham neglects to ask whether the worker would like to see her workplace criminalized or not. Feminist writer Gloria Steinem too typifies this when she writes our spirits break a little each time we see ourselves in chains or full labia display for the conquering male viewer, bruised or on our knees, end quote. The language of the paragraph flickers between two perspectives Stinum as viewer, our spirits break a little each time we see, and Stinum as performer, ourselves in chains of full labour display. Rendering the sex worker a symbol enables anti-prostitution campaigners to treat themselves and their concerns as interchangeable with those of sex workers, we re-inscribing these concerns as representational rather than asking more granular questions of labour rights. As Melissa Gia Grant writes, an image of a woman in porn can be seen to stand in for all women, whereas an actual woman performing in porn is understood as essentially other. So quote defending women from images of women in porn end quote is a project that's understood by some feminists as a broader political project, whereas the labour rights of women who perform in porn are considered marginal, end quote. A sex worker may describe a bad experience as a labour rights violation, sexual abuse or simply a shitty at work. Regardless, their testimonials are not merely symbols to be interpreted by non-prostitute feminists, especially not as part of rallying for the criminalization of their income. Current workers are the experts on what current working conditions in the sex work industry are like. It is frustrating to sex workers when the exited or non-prostitute perspective are centered, and our voices are treated as optional extras. The difference between prostitutes and non-prostitutes and between current and former sex workers is fundamental, not because of identities, but because of the material conditions of those who sell and trade sex. Only some people are actually having sex for money in the here and now, and others are not. No matter what stake they feel they have in the debate, non-prostitute and exited survivors cannot justify talk over sex workers who are still selling sex. The difficult truth is that harm will come to people selling sex tonight, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, for many people doing so remains the only viable way to survive. The politics of happy hookers and exited women have no space for the existence of the unhappy sex worker, whose inconvenient truths disrupt the comforting delusion that prostitution is a sexual orientation. Instead she is forced, usually by economic necessity, to continue choosing survival over a noble exit, and she reminds us that capitalism cannot be magified away with liberal or carceral solutions. For this person, sex work may be sex, but it is also work. In a world that allows no alternative, understanding what work is, however, is easier said than done. Chapter two Work I've heard some of my white friends say that they're in prostitution because of the power. Well, for black women it's for the money. Gloria Lockett. Prostitution is not productive. The only quote product of the sex trade is an orgasm for a man. That's not productive, that's not quote work. Sharon Hodgson, Labour MP. Capital had to convince us that housework is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept our unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that housework is not work, thus preventing women from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen bedroom quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing the protagonist of a struggle. We are seen as nagging bitches, not workers in struggle. Sylvia Federiki Wages Against Housework is work good as a society we obsessively valorize work as a key locus of meaning, status and identity in our lives. At the same time, we struggle with shit jobs, falling wages, and the correct suspicion that what many of us do for money all day contributes nothing of real value to our lives or communities. Instead, we mostly just make profits for people further up the chain. In the confusion and confusing context, to do what you love is deeply aspirational, a lean in fantasy that gives an individual the illusion of control, a daydream of power in the office, and in reality, a significant class marker. The woman interviewed in magazines about their morning routines are invariably early risers, not because they're cleaning the office in question, but because they're running it, and we are taught a moral lesson connecting their happiness to their productivity, to the accountrements of their good life, the high end gym, the smiling personal assistant, the architecture firm, the fresh flowers. They are here to show us work is good. The erotic professional and the anti-prostitution activist share the assumption that work is good. The erotic professional as we saw in the last chapter cultivates an image of professionalism and economic achievement, emphasizing her specialized skills, equipment and talent. Her narrative includes the status symbols associated with success, a large income, leisure time, a good education, home ownership, and so on. Positioning herself within a context of luxury goods and conspicuous consumption is an advertising strategy. It signals to wealthy clients that she is on their level and that spending substantial sums on specialist forms of sex or connection is legitimate. Along with sex positivity, the idea of the disabled client is often crucial to the politics of work that the erotic professional espouses. The disabled client more than other men typifies the figure of the deserving client, his need seen as primarily a need for intimacy and connection rather than carnal passion, both professionalizes and sanctifies the sex worker, portraying her in the soft, flattering light of a physical therapist or disability rights advocate, and granting her work legitimacy through this lens. Not only does the erotic professional derive authentic pleasure from her work, but she does so within a framework of social value. Who could deny such a man, depicted as desexualized, unthreatening and deserving the intimacy and connection he craves? This is patronizing, ableist way to view disabled people. It is also an inadequate approach to sex workers' rights, which should hinge on workers' rights to safety, not on the purported social value of the work. Through these fantasies, through these fantasies and illusions, the erotic professional upholds mainstream notions of who deserves what. She agrees that prestigious work deserves respect and rewards. She merely wishes to expand our collective understanding of what prestigious work is, to include herself with her high income, her BDSM vocational calling, or her therapeutic approach to the deserving disabled client. The erotic professional's political expression regularly includes the claim that the sex work industry is amazing to work in, much more so than any other job. This line of argument makes the purpose and demands of the sex workers' rights movement unclear. What problem are we trying to fix if the situation is already perfect? In a sense, anti-prostitution feminists implicitly agree the erotic professional implicitly agree with the erotic professional. They too think that the question of whether sex workers' work should primarily be fought on the terrain of whether sex work is good work. They merely disagree that commercial sex could ever fall into the category of quote good work. They therefore position work in general as something that the worker should find fulfilling, non exploitative and enjoyable. Deviation from this supposed norm is treated as evidence that something cannot be work. It's not work, it's exploitation, is a refrain you hear again and again. One feminist policy maker in Sweden told a reporter don't say sex work, it's far too awful to be work. Awfulness and work are positioned as anti fetical. If prostitution is awful, it cannot be work. Anti-prostitution feminists and even policy makers often ask sex workers whether we should have sex with our clients if we weren't being paid. Work is thus constantly being reinscribed as something so personally fulfilling you would pursue it for free. Indeed, this understanding is in some ways embedded in anti-prostitution advocacy through the prevalence of unpaid internships in such organizations. Equality Now, a major multi-million dollar anti-prostitution organization, instructs applicants that their 8 to 10 week internships will be unpaid, adding that, quote, no arrangements can be made for housing. Such posts are common. Ruhama advertises numerous volunteer roles that could easily be paid jobs. In 2017, a UK anti-slavery charity came under fire in the national press for advertising unpaid internships in 2013. Turn off the red light, an Irish anti-prostitution advertised for an intern who would not be paid the minimum wage. The result of these unpaid and underpaid internships is that the women who are most able to build careers in the women's sector, campaigning and setting policy agendas around prostitution are women who can afford to do unpaid full-time work in New York and London. In this context, it is hardly a surprise that the anti-prostitution movement as a whole has a somewhat abstract view of the relationship between work and money. Work may be mostly positive for those who can largely set the parameters of the conversation, like high profile journalists. However, this does not describe reality for most women workers or workers in general, or even many journalists. Most workers suffer some unfair conditions in the workplace and would not, as a rule, do their jobs for free. Work is often pretty awful, especially when it's low paid and unprestigious. This is not to say that this state of affairs is good, or that we should accept it because it is normal, but nor it is useful to pretend that work is generally wonderful and exclude from our analysis the demands of workers whose experience does not meet this standard. As with other jobs that women do, sexist devaluation of women's work erases the emotional labour and hustle that constitutes the bulk of sex workers, actual efforts reducing our job to simply being available for penetration at all times. Indeed, one of the key ideas used to treat prostitution as quote not work is the idea that we are simply wholes, that we are offering or purchased consent, quote, and man paying a woman for sex does so on the premise that he can do what he likes with her body in the time he has purchased it, end quote, writes one UK feminist. Although perhaps easy to distractedly nod along to commentary such as this reveals itself upon closer inspection to be perpetuating what it claims to condemn. A massage therapist who, like a sex worker, sells time and services rather than a physical product is not doing so, quote, on the premise that a client can do what he likes with her body in the time that he has purchased. And to make such a statement about a massage therapist would be obviously horrifying. That it can be claimed about sex workers shows how deep the belief goes that women who sell sex give up all bodily boundaries. It is a belief shared and mutually reinforced by those who assault us and those who imagine themselves our defenders. Not only are such claims misogynistic, they are also absurd. Consider common sex industry acronyms such as OWO or without, i. e. a blowjob without a condom. In adverts posted by workers and reviews posted by clients, the existence of such terminology speaks to a shared expectation that sex workers have boundaries to which they expect clients to adhere. After all, if boundaries become meaningless after money changes hands, why do these adverts and reviews bother to convey in sex work industry jargon created specifically to communicate these details? That Mia sells oral sex with a condom while Jade offers oral without? Mia or Jade's specifications around condom use would become irrelevant if their consent had actually been purchased. Just as forcing a massage therapist to give you oral sex would constitute sexual assault. Because she is not giving you the right to her body when she sells massage services. Forcing a sex worker to, for instance, have sex without a condom constitutes rape, precisely because the sex worker has not sold that right for a client to use her body as he likes in the time he has purchased it in. In this way, a sex worker is no different from an actor who knows the difference between performing a love scene and having her breasts groped after the cameras have stopped rolling. Or the movie's producer pressuring her to give a quote massage in his trailer. If we are serious about safety for sex workers in a post-Weinstein era, we will extend to them the same faith we give to film stars in their ability to differentiate between sexual touch at work and sexual touch that even in the workplace is assault. Our ability to understand such assaults as rape depends on not understanding sex work as purchase consent, wherein sex workers hand over control of our boundaries and bodily rights with the exchange of cash. As sex worker Nikita told the 2017 Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International, UK, part of believing me when I say I've been raped is believing me when I say I haven't been. This means that the mistreatment of sex workers begins to seem natural. If we who sell sex are already degraded through penetration, then the fervor degradation of being written about as garbage cans, flesh holes, sperm reciprocals, orifices or blow up dolls is seen as fact rather than as actively reproducing and perpetrating misogynistic discord and all in the nature of feminism. In being candid about bad workplace conditions, sex workers fear handing a weapon to political opponents. Their complaints about work paradoxically become justification to dismiss them as not real workers. As one prominent UK feminist joked, quote, ever thought about having multiple penises shoved up you as a career? The longer you do it, the more your earning potential decreases. But they say there's a fetish for everything, end quote. The joke is that sex workers mistakenly think that what they do is work, even when that work can be sexist and ageist. Of course, if being subject to sexist and ageist discrimination at work excluded someone from the category of worker, most older women workers would be excluded. The gender pay gap increases with age. If the only quote real worker is one who suffers no workplace oppression or exploitation, then all organizing for workers' rights becomes superfluous. Some workers are lucky enough to have good pay, meaningful work and autonomy. But most of us feel the sharp edge of exploitation in some way. Perhaps your boss took a cut out of your tips, or forced you to work on your partner's birthday, or during your grandfather's funeral. Perhaps you've started to resent the way your timesheets always seem to entail an extra 15 minutes of unpaid work at the end of the day. Or how long you spend on your commute time. That's not only uncompensated but actively expensive. You're paying to get to work and the company you work for is absorbing the benefit. In an important sense, wage work is exploitation. In a capitalist economy, bosses generate profits by paying you less for your labour than the money they make when the product of your labour is sold. It is not reasonable to assume that any kind of work, including sex work, is generally good. So we have done our what 10 pages for today. Thank you so much for listening, especially if you stayed after my little ramble at the start. So yeah, thank you very much for listening. Bye.