TIRED OF THE PRIVATE SHOW
Taking sex work out of the shadows
and into public consciousness.

by Rebecca Castillo and Sarah Feightner

BEING A SEX WORKER isn’t something to write home about for most men and women in the $12
billion-a-year sex industry.

Prostitutes, strippers and adult film stars put themselves and what they do for a living out on the street, stage and
TV screen every day, but they often keep their working lives a secret from friends, family, and other employers.
They don’t do this by choice, but because their jobs are widely considered illegal, unhealthy and immoral.

Carol Leigh, aka the “Scarlot Harlot,” hasn’t let a little social stigma stop her from rallying for sex workers’ rights
since the late 1970s. An activist, author and self-proclaimed unrepentant whore, Leigh recently took the stage at the
New York City leg of the Sex Workers Art Show tour to talk about the difficulties of being “out” as a sex worker.

“You don’t want to tell your neighbors because they’ll watch your door,” she told the crowd at the Knitting Factory
in Tribeca. “You don’t want to tell your mother, because what’ll she tell the rest of your family? And DON’T tell
your dissertation committee!”

While the typical privacy struggle is a fight for more privacy, a vibrant community of out and proud sex workers
like Leigh is fighting for the right to a little less. Cultural happenings like the Sex Workers Art Show, sex work
Web sites and blogs, a CUNY-sponsored conference at the end of the month, and a new magazine “by and for”
people in the sex industry all showcase sex workers who dare to take their jobs out of the shadows and into public
consciousness.

Annie Oakley founded the Sex Workers Art Show, a touring performance troupe made up of current and former
sex workers, in 1997 to help fight negative stereotypes about sex work. “The main goal is to present sex workers
as multifaceted people,” she said, “so they can begin to be taken seriously as people who deserve labor rights,
social access, safety and dignity.”

Hostile laws and public attitudes make even mundane activities like talking openly with health care providers
challenging for sex workers.  Writing a résumé became an unexpected problem for sex blogger and former
masseuse Audacia Ray. “A lot of sex workers are not in it for life,” she noted. “It’s something they drift in and
out of. So it’s really hard to account for those gaps in your résumé.”

Sex workers also have a hard time finding social or legal services to turn to when they need help. According to
a 2005 study of prostitution in New York City conducted by the Urban Justice Center, while 46 percent of
prostitutes surveyed had been victims of violence while on the job, only 16 percent felt at the time that they could
go to the police for help.

Another goal of activists like Oakley and Leigh is to make the public more aware of abusive working conditions
in the sex industry. 

“If you’re talking about stripping, for instance, there are insane stage fees at places where you might pay $300 a
night to work there and leave owing the club money because you’re an independent contractor,” said Oakley. “You
can be subject to abuses from management and pushed to do stuff that you’re not comfortable with.”

“Then there’s prostitution,” Oakley continued, “which is technically illegal so we’re subject to abuse from the
police. Rape and violence that happen to sex workers are often not reported or not taken seriously when they
are reported.”

The need for secrecy keeps most sex workers from organizing to protect themselves. A San Francisco peepshow
called the Lusty Lady remains the only sex business with a union in the United States. A handful of general sex
workers' unions exist, but the membership of even an international organization like the International Union of Sex
Workers tops out at 150.

According to Kari Kesler, a feminist scholar and former escort, the stigma against selling sex has an emotional toll
on sex workers as well.

“The times I slipped in public, was too obvious in a hotel lobby or too loud on the phone, I felt ashamed. My
face burned. I wanted to run,” she recalled. “It’s hard to fully embrace your life when you are always afraid of
being exposed.”

Kesler notes that these feelings weren’t caused by a sense of shame about being a sex worker. “The feelings were
about others’ judgment and the fear of what might happen if I was found out.”

With so much at risk, it’s no surprise that most sex workers keep their working lives under wraps. But sex workers
who’ve gone public like Audacia Ray and Annie Oakley think it’s worth giving up their privacy to challenge the
public’s assumptions about sex work.

“When people tell me that sex workers should remain behind closed doors I basically tell them that is bullshit,” said
Ray. “Culture, society and the legal world are set up to shame sex workers. I think it’s really important that sex
workers come out of their own volition and combat the way they are portrayed in the media.”

Oakley agrees, noting that the porn industry alone makes more money than professional baseball, hockey and
football combined. “Americans consume porn and sex voraciously,” she said. “But people are very invested in
not knowing anything about the people who are servicing them. And it’s that otherness that allows the abuses
that happen in the sex industry to go on.”