SPEAKER_01 0:57

Hello and welcome back to Behind the Powder Podcast with Me Pulse and Victoria. Today we are going back to pregnancy. In the first episode, I spoke about my own experiences being pregnant and doing porn and how that kind of changed me and how I learned from it and how messed up poverty is. And the government really need to change a lot of things, especially when it comes to helping parents. So I would recommend going to listen to part one. And this is part two. Part two is I think gonna be a wee bit shorter. Um, just based on the fact that we did go over a lot of things in part one, but I did think they were needed and necessary. So the next thing we're gonna talk about is can sex workers be good mothers? Because I especially always get the stereotype that I'm not a good mum just based on the fact, just just based on my job. Um with my this is gonna be quite personal, but with my the father of my child, even though he did porn with me and he was with me through me escorting and doing webcam and supportive of that, um, even when we moved to Scotland after the pregnancy and lived in a house together, um, I carry I wanted to do more in-person work rather than webcam. Um, we were still producing a few things here and there, but I was still um seeing people in person. So I this was just mainly dominatrixing. I wasn't really escorting because I just had those we had those limits and boundaries, and I respected what he wanted, um, which is completely different now from any relationship which I get into because what I want to do is what I want to do. I'm not letting anybody, especially a man, get in front of that. I will not be changing my work just based off of your preference. If you do not want to date a sex worker, do not. Um what else? Yeah, so I was doing all that, and the moment I mentioned that I wanted to leave and not be with him and get my own place, it changed completely. I mean, it was already not the greatest relationship, and I was being the breadwinner, and it was very, very draining, honestly. Um, there was just no love, and you know, those relationships aren't great. Um, but once I moved out, um, he then threatened legal action. Um, I beat him to it, uh, based on the basis that if you know how court is, it looks more better in your favour when you say you want the child um first, essentially. Um and I did, I absolutely did. I knew that he wasn't capable of looking after a child. I don't even think he really wanted a child that much, um, especially by just his reactions to a lot of things, especially me being pregnant. But it it taught me a lot in the ways that men can deceive you. You can pay the bills and everything like that, but underneath they will if they want to attack you, they will. He consistently used my job as a sex worker in court to try and make out that I was not a good mum. That was terrifying because you know it is still a very taboo job, and you never know what way it can go. If you look at the evidence, then you can see that courts have favoured the other parent over the sex worker parent just based on their job. There was a case, I think, in France, where it this is in the Revolting Prostitutes book. We have read this book in the podcast previously, um, all in full. Um, but yeah, it was a court case, court battle between the mother and the father, and the mother was the sex worker, and the dad was a very, very abusive. Um I believe the father ended up killing get getting custody and then killing the mother. I can't remember if he killed the child, but he killed the mother, and it's it was horrible to read. It really puts life into perspective, especially when you're a sex worker and your life can be at risk because nobody takes us seriously and we don't have any rights or protections or anything like that, and the Nordic model certainly isn't going to do that. Decriminalization will help, it has been proven to help. So, yeah, I have had that used against me multiple times. Um, I remember that I was sort of hooking up with a guy, and because I stopped seeing him and I disliked him actually, um, he ended up contacting Child Services saying that I was bringing my child to work.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Um and what else? There's another one as well, but I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Oh yeah, my baby daddy's mum also called Child Services stating that she didn't know where my child was while I worked when in the what two, three year relationship which I had with her son, she was perfectly fine, and she knew that I did sex work. Um, so it all changes when custody and there are disagreances, and it sucks because he dragged me through the mud for a year and a half just because he knew that I would have to pay for a lawyer, and he didn't have to pay because he was on benefits, and it only ended because he couldn't be bothered messaging his lawyer back, which is horrible to just think about in general, but this is how people can be, um, especially to sex workers, if they don't respect you and they don't respect the job. Um, I was very lucky to have a judge that literally said to him, if you bring up her work for the third time, you will have to pay for your own lawyer. I was very like that was a man judge. I was very, very thankful and lucky that he understood that I was not a bad mum. I have I have never done anything foul towards my child. And the judge saw that. Um, and I was a stable parent. I bought a house, uh, bought a house, had a steady job, you know, doing sex work, and my V1 had a life where I was, where I'm based. So yeah, there is that absolute narrative of sex workers can't be good mothers. Absolutely. And I've had a bit of that. It's not fun thinking your child's gonna get taken off of you just because a few people think that that sex workers aren't good mums just because of their job. There's usually no need for anybody to intervene or anything like that when you're a sex working mum. I know that when I've told parents what I do, um honestly they've been really curious, and there hasn't for me been any backlash or any horribleness. Um, usually it comes with the parents telling me potentially how horrible their sex life is, and so they want to dive into mine. Um, that usually comes first rather than how are you. I did have to cut a friendship off just because of that, just because I felt like they just wanted to know more about my job, like the major details than me. And you know, I don't mind talking to people about it or anything like that, but you know, it it just didn't feel nice. I think when it comes to somebody being a sex worker, you it's a difficult one because we don't have any protections in the first place. Like I can't go out and buy a property and work from it. Already done that, didn't work, you can't do that. Um, and if you get one objection by like a neighbor or something, or just somebody, then you have to shut down. So like we can't work out of a different like property apart from our personal homes unless you want to risk getting raided or getting in trouble with the police, um, especially or just getting uh a notice saying you have to evict or something along those lines. Um and if you go to like a dungeon or a brothel, just straight up a brothel, um, you can get charged with being in a brothel um or running a brothel because that's what I was done with. Um I had a property which I let other sex workers rent as a whole, not just rooms. And I got charged with brothel keeping, and I could have gone to jail for up to seven years. Thankfully, that was dropped. Um, social work obviously had to intervene. Um, and they were like, hey, we can see you've had bother in the past, you're a perfect mum. Like, there is no worries or anything like that. Your child's hitting the milestones, they are clothed, they're fed, they're not hurt or anything like that. For some people, sex work challenges their idea of what a respectable mother should look like. They assume that a woman who performs sexual labor cannot also be responsible, caring, and devoted to her family. But real life rarely supports that assumption. Throughout my career, I've known countless sex workers who were parents. Women who did school runs, attended parents' evenings, stayed up late with sick children, worried about paying bills, and worked long hours to provide for their families. In other words, they were doing exactly what millions of parents do every day. The only difference was the work they did to support those families. What many people don't see is the fear that often comes with that. Not because someone is ashamed of being a parent or ashamed of loving their child, but because they know how quickly society can judge them. Many sex workers worry about being discovered by neighbors, other parents, schools, or professionals. They worry that their work will be used to define them more than their parenting ever will. Now I am very out there, I'm face out completely. You ask me my job, if I feel like I'm safe, if I'm gonna be safe around you, then I will just say that I'm a dominatrix. And then if you want to know more, then I will expand and say that I am an escort. Because people take that you are a dominatrix much easier than you open your legs for money. Uh, that is how I've seen it. Um and that's how I'm navigating it if I feel safe with that particular person. If not, I'm just an accountant. That's that's just what I am. For the most part, I will say I'm a dominatrix because I don't like lying, and I want to be my true self. What gets lost in those conversations are the things that actually make up parenting. The packed launches, the school uniforms, the birthday parties, the late nights confronting a frightened child, the endless worrying, the everyday movements that rarely make headlines, but form the foundation of family life. Parenting isn't a purity test, it's not a competition to see who best fits society's image of the perfect mother. Trust me, I've met those mothers who want to seem absolutely perfect on the inside, but inside they're actually kind of crumbling, and it's not great. I have seen families on the in on the outside look perfectly fine, look, they look so happy, but when you actually get to know them and you see things, you see that oh, they're smacking their child and calling their child a pansy when they fall over and cry, and their relationship's falling apart. And I'm like, ah, okay. Um it's about care, responsibility, consistency, and love. Some sex workers are excellent parents, some aren't. The same is true of teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, and every other profession on the planet. No job automatically makes someone a good parent, and no job automatically makes someone a bad parent. That's why I find these conversations honestly kind of frustrating. They often reduce people they often reduce real people and real families into stereotypes. We stop looking at how someone actually parents and start judging them based on assumptions attached to a profession. If this entire conversation around Bonnie Blue rev reveals anything, it's how quickly society still does that, not just to sex workers, but to women generally, particularly women who refuse to fit neatly into a single category, if you're not a traditional trad wife, if you don't want to stay home and look after the children, um, if you don't want to fit into that role, you are on the outside line, you're outside of the box. Because a woman can be a mother and a worker, she can be nurturing and sexual, she can be responsible and unconventional, she can provide for her family while living a life that other people don't fully understand. The problem isn't that these identities are incompatible, the problem is that many people still struggle to imagine them existing. So when it comes to healthcare, pregnancy, and stigma, I don't believe I revealed to my healthcare um professionals that I was doing sex work. I honestly cannot I feel I do believe I just said that I was a nanny. Um and when I go to the doctors, I do get like my tests done and everything like that every now and again. Um I don't have sex that often, honestly, um in work, but I do get tested and it's something every sex worker should do. Um one aspect of pregnancy that rarely gets disclosed is when people talk about sex workers and healthcare. It's not particularly like a great headline or an outrageous headline when sex workers go see healthcare professionals. But anyone who has been pregnant, healthcare becomes a huge part of everyday life. Suddenly your weeks are filled with appointments, scans, blood tests, checkups, advice, and conversations about your health and your baby's health, and you have to eat healthy, you have to walk, you have to do a lot of quite a few things. Um, for many people, pregnancy means interacting with the healthcare system more than they ever have before. And trust me, the amount of doctors' appointments that I had and seeing people, and yeah, I was just a nanny. I didn't escort or anything like that. Um but when I was pregnant, I do believe I just had one part like sexual partner, um, because we were just all doing webcam. I think just before or at the start of getting pregnant, I did a few escorting bits. Um, but that was it. Ideally, honesty should be easy. Healthcare professionals need accurate information, patients deserve appropriate care, and trust is essential for good medical outcomes. That is very, very true, and it's really important as well. The problem is that stigma doesn't disappear the moment someone walks into a clinic. Many sex workers have experienced situations where disclosing their profession changed the way they were treated. Not always, and certainly not by every healthcare professional, but often enough that the concerns exist. I remember once going to this new practice for some tests, um, not pregnant. And when I told the woman that I was a sex worker, sh the doctor, uh, she became really concerned and she was like, you need to get these more often. And I was like, well, I actually, you know, my sexual activity isn't that massive. Um, and like I I like two weeks is a bit too soon and things, you know? Like every two weeks is a bit too soon and kind of unneeded because I can go a week or two weeks without seeing somebody. Like the doctor was like, oh, you should come every two weeks to get tested, and I was like, that's like way too often, and some symptoms don't even show until a month on, um, if you do get symptoms at all. And I also don't have that much sexual activity um when it comes to like why I would need these tests. So yeah, I I feel like maybe she thought I was having sex all the time and things, but yeah. Like to be like healthcare professionals absolutely have valid reasons for asking questions. It's all about your health, and sexual health really does matter. Medical history matters as well. The issue isn't the questions are being asked, the issue is whether those questions come from a place of care or a place of judgment. There's a significant difference between a professional trying to understand a patient's circumstances and someone making assumptions based on the label. There's evidence out there, and again, if you look at um revolt and prostitutes, as well as just a lot of sex worker-led Instagram pages and organizations. I say Instagram because usually it's just pretty easy to see what they've posted every day, and there will be studies and facts along with that. I've heard many sex workers describe feeling as though they're being assessed twice during pregnancy, first as a pregnant person, then as a sex worker. Sometimes it can feel as though the profession overshadows everything else. The focus shifts away from questions like how are you coping, and moves towards questions about whether someone should be doing the work at all. Those are very different concerns. Those are very different conversations. One is centered on care and the other is centered on judgment. And while concern can absolutely Come from a good place. It's important to recognize how easily concern can slide into it's important to also acknowledge that many sex workers have excellent experiences with healthcare. Many encounter midwives, doctors, nurses, and support workers who are compassionate, respectful, and generally invested in helping them. Those experiences are very important. The goal is to paint healthcare. The goal isn't to paint healthcare as hostile, but to recognize why some people remain cautious and why trust can be can take time to build. At the end of the day, pregnant people want the same basic things regardless of their profession. They want to be healthy. They want their child. They want their children to be healthy. They want accurate information, good care, and a sense of safety during one of the most significant experiences in their life. And it can be a very scary experience. And before we go any further, I think it's important to mention that the reality of sex work, how it operates in the UK, because a lot of people have strong opinions about pregnant sex workers without understanding the legal and economic landscape they're navigating. So we've already talked about poverty. We've already talked about how crappy maternity pay is just in general, and how even if you do have a normal 9 to 5 job, you then can become a sex worker just based on the fact that maternity pay slashes around like 70-80% of your monthly income, usually. One of the biggest misconceptions is that sex work is either completely legal or completely illegal. The reality is much messier and it does seem like a bit of a grey area. In England and Wales, selling sex between consenting adults is legal. However, many activities surrounding sex work are criminalized. Soliciting in public can be an offence. Managing premises used for sex work can be an offence, and perhaps most controversially, two independent sex workers working together for safety can risk their workplace being classified as a brothel. That legal contradiction has been criticized by sex worker organizations for years because it creates a difficult situation, and the very things that can make someone safer in practice, working alongside another person. Sharing premises, looking out for one another, can sometimes increase legal risk. What improves safety and what complies with law are not always the same thing. And this does go for Scotland as well. Um, in Northern Ireland, um, they do have the Nordic model there, where it's the exact same, but they criminalise the clients, at least attempt to, but they definitely crack down more on it in Northern Ireland. So the UK system is often described as one of partial criminalization. Selling sex itself isn't illegal, but many of the ways people organize their work, protect themselves, and access support are restricted. As a result, sex workers often find themselves navigating a complicated web of legal concerns, financial pressures, and social stigma all at the same time. When pregnancy enters the picture, those pressures don't disappear. Pregnancy doesn't pause rent bills, childcare planning, or concerns about personal safety. It doesn't remove the need for income, and it certainly doesn't remove the stigma many sex workers already face. In fact, pregnancy can make some of those challenges more difficult. Questions about healthcare become more important, financial planning becomes more urgent, safety concerns can become more significant. At the same time, many workers are trying to prepare for a major life change while operating within a legal framework that doesn't always make that easy. There are also practical realities that are often overlooked. Estimates suggest there are tens of thousands of sex workers in the UK, the majority of whom work indoors rather than on the street. Yet because of stigma and the legal grey area surrounding the industry, it's difficult to gather precise data. That lack of visibility has consequences. When a population is poorly understood, it becomes harder to design policies that reflect the realities of their lives. But decriminalisation of sex work, research has shown in New Zealand and Australia that it has improved the lives of sex workers, especially when it comes down to stigma. Whereas in other countries where it's either illegal or they have the Nordic model, like Sweden, Northern Ireland, America, there is stigma is very rife there. When discussing pregnancy, it's easy to ask why someone doesn't simply stop working, but that question often assumes they have options available that may not actually exist. For many people, stopping work can mean losing income, reducing financial stability, and making it harder to prepare for a child. That's not a moral question, it's an economic reality. And I think that's why conversations about pregnancy, sex work, and motherhood can't be separated from discussions about law, class, and survival. They aren't independent issues, they are really connected. A lot of these topics are connected in so many different ways, which is why I try not to ramble and go on and on, which is why some of these podcast episodes are an hour long, because it is that deep, because they do need to be spoken about, every single one of them. The choices people make during pregnancy don't happen just as one, they happen within specific social, legal, and financial circumstances. If we ignore those circumstances, we risk judging decisions without ever understanding the pressures that shape them in the first place. Now, a lot has happened um since part one of this episode. It turns out Bonnie Blue was actually pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah, I mean, I feel like there is a lot of social stigma around this. Um, especially because she isn't in a committed relationship. Uh we don't know who the father is. We you know, there is a lot of social stigma about it. Um I think obviously it's definitely gonna bite her in the butt because of who she is and what she is continuing to do. I do think because of how society is, that child potentially will get bullied in the future. And I think with Bonnie Blue, I think she definitely does get off on the media and the all the drama and everything like that. So I don't honestly know if she's going to stop.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Uh I personally we we have completely two different experiences.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

I understand that she's doing it for financial gain. But I feel like it's going a bit too far now that she is actually pregnant. But then it's a tough one because women should be able to do what they want without stigma and social judgment. But there is going to be that. But in order for us to change, we need to fully understand why people do what they do and to not judge certain things, especially when it comes to sexual activity.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

But it it it is really a hard one. Because it's hard not to judge people on their actions.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

I I wish though that Bonnie Blue would honestly be more of an activist when it comes to sex work in terms of wanting decriminalization and speaking about it. Like it's all well her wanting to do a platform where, you know, as I said, sh I feel like she's like the Trisha Paytes of sex work in the ways that Trisha Paytes obviously does well did do OnlyFans, but she capitalized more on like the YouTube sort of PG stuff, um, that you can access there rather than the 18 plus gangbangs and all that stuff. Um yeah, that's that's the one thing where I wish Bonnie Blue would talk about because she is doing sex work and she I feel like it would be great if she spoke up more about the legalities and what the government wants to do and yeah, be more of an activist, the usual platform for good. I understand wanting to get fame and money and everything like that. But at the same time, I think she needs to speak about the worst things that happen to sex workers and why the laws need to change and why society needs to be better and the stigma needs to go away rather than what some people see as her setting a massively bad example. Uh I I know I heard of Bonnie Blue when it came down to she was doing a gangbang with 18 to 19 year olds coming out of uni, and I mean they are adults, and like, yeah, l legally they are adults, but we are also missing the fact that they need to be educated on a number of things and they are young adults. I know at that age I didn't know really what my life was gonna be or anything like that, but like none of the men have had the backlash, it's just Bonnie, which I find really not fair, honestly. She didn't force the men to do anything, but yet she's getting the backlash. So I I understand that part of it where she is showing people how unjust it is that we treat women very differently from the men. Well I found interesting as well watching the Bonnie Blue Conversation multiple times because there were so many conversations and so many media in the papers and online and so many interviews, um, was how many different stories people were seeing in exactly the same events because some people saw it as exploitation, exploitation of the lads, not her, which is very odd, because when it comes to like escorting, usually the right say all the women are getting exploited. But when it comes to Bonnie Blue, because she proper owns her own autonomy and owns what is happening and is loud and proud about it, nobody's saying that she's getting exploited. They're saying the people who are going to see her are, which is interesting. Others saw empowerment. I don't really like that word, um, because I don't find anything empowering using your body, whether that be working at McDonald's or in Primark or just any job. Any job. I don't see it as empowering. We're under a capitalistic government and society, and you know, we need to work to pay the bills, and we need to work tirelessly.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

People can barely afford rent, food, petrol. To have a car, it's a luxury.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

To take the bus, that can be seen as a luxury as well. The bus fare is ridiculous. People are spending more and more these days on bills and outgoings, and it's not okay. We are all slaves to the government, to our jobs, to the big bosses who do not care that we're getting paid nothing. And this is why we have people going into sex work and charging a bit of money, sometimes, depending on your circumstances, to survive. And I know this is very controversial, a little bit off topic, but but when addicts do street work, sex work, that's not empowering. We're all trying to survive, and we all have have our reasons of how society has treated us and how we've gotten into certain positions and how we are struggling.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Sex work isn't empowering. Far from it. I am happy to do this job and I love it, but we are still bound to paying outrageous bills to have a roof over our heads and to feed our children.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

That's not how we should live. We shouldn't live worrying about the next bill coming out if we've got enough money.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

Working in general isn't empowering. An office job isn't empowering. Being a plumber isn't empowering. It's not no job is unless you're a a millionaire, billionaire, then you can see that.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

I understand that they can see that as empowering, but they're still in the system that if something goes wrong, or if they do get taxed enough, like how all of us pay tax, they're not even gonna crumble.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

They're still gonna survive, but just with a little bit less money.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

We need to stand up as a society and say, we are paying too much. This isn't right, and it's not because of quote illegal immigrants, people coming over to this country. It's not because of that at all. It's because our own government wants to screw us over and they want to get richer and richer. And they want to make us all against each other. This is all a game for them.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

And they want to see what pawns they can push. No job is empowering. It's a joke.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Society is shaped by financial pressures, personal experiences, opportunities, fears, ambitions, and circumstances that strangers on the internet know nothing about. But complexity doesn't travel as well as outrage. Which is why this whole Bonnie Blue culture war story has completely exploded. There are so many things to mention about this. And it's why it's important to look beyond Bonnie Blue herself and ask the reaction, and ask what the reaction tells us. Because when people argue about her, they're often not really arguing about her at all. They're arguing about what they think sex work means, what they think motherhood should look like, what they believe women should or shouldn't do with their bodies, and more broadly, what they think society is becoming. So that is the end of this episode. I hope you guys have enjoyed it. Um I'm off to Download Festival this week, so you will get um I'm gonna record right now next week's episode. So yeah, I'm very excited. And this has been quite an interesting part one and part two, and I hope you guys have enjoyed it. If you guys have any recommendations on what other topics I should cover, then please send them my way. I will be doing a QA in three weeks, I think. Uh yeah, three, four weeks. Something along those lines. I already got a few questions from a few people, but if anybody else has any questions about anything, um, then I can certainly answer them. And you can send a message through the Spotify, Apple Podcasts, um, and you know, email the podcast itself. And on the Buzzfeed website, you can send us a message as well. BuzzFeed? No, it's BuzzSprout. And you can send us a message on the BuzzSprout website as well. So lots of ways to get in touch and please do not forget to leave a review. So thank you very, very much. It's been Bayernaban Podcast with me, Pors and Victoria.

unknown 44:57

Bye.