Sex Worker Happiness

Beyond the "how can she be happy when she's so desensitized" talk...

Sex work as a spectrum of human individuals covers more than the happy & the unhappy. Between the oppressed and the valiant, the abused and the angry, the unstable & the insane, the victim and the victimizer, the criminal and the god-send, the blissfully ignorant and down-trodden, the sexually delirious and the addicted, there are many individuals. Including some of us who just do/did our jobs.

Like any worker, we had/have our complaints. We bitched about difficult clients, like any consultant. We had those days where we were sure that smiling just one more time would make our faces crack, rather like any retail clerk at holiday time. We even complained about parking, traffic, and broken heels on (non-stripper) shoes, like anyone else. And sure, we complained about the legal threat. But we still took the risk & put up with the petty crap because, like any other worker, overall we considered our job to be better than the alternatives.

No, I don't mean homelessness, abject poverty & beatings from our pimp; I mean we just liked sex work more than data entry, para legal work, driving bus, graphic design, etc. etc. etc. (Many of us even enjoy our sex work more than those careers we went to college to get degrees for.) I'm not denying that there is homelessness, poverty, abuse, and drug addiction; just pointing out (again and again) that these issues are hungry wolves at the door of any person in any profession.

Some sex workers have the audacity to just view their work as just that, work. They do it, sometimes they bitch about it, but then they go about living their lives.

But for those of us who engage in the battle for legal rights, against social stigma, we have to pay attention to such conversations regarding "sex worker happiness".