Loud And Proud: Coming Out As A Sex Worker

There was an interesting article in the Village Voice from last week, “Whore Pride”, about the modern world o’ sex work in the city.
The writer interviews a number of different women who participate in various activities that are considered “sex work”. For example, Jane Vincent is a “self-proclaimed slut and whore” that created her own blog, Educated Slut, which discusses her experiences with sex work. She gets her clients from Craigslist.org, and although she does a lot of random freaky-deaky shit, never has intercourse with them. But that’s just her. She also started her own sex workers’ collective and works for a reproductive rights organization.
Audacia Ray also has her own blog that talks of her work in the sex industry, Waking Vixen. Yes, it looks like a number of young, feminist, politically active and educated women are beginning to come out of the sex work closet. There’s also a bunch of books coming out by sex workers, including Michelle Tea’s illustrated and autobiographical book Rent Girl and Nelly Arcan’s novel Whore.
A new magazine is creating talk as well, titled $pread: Illuminating the Sex Industry. A co-editor, Raven Strega, tells us the purpose of the magazine: “We want the general public to become aware of issues such as the physical working conditions of sex workers and their health care and housing needs, and to start considering sex workers as real people rather than mythical beasts who only come to life when someone drops a quarter into a slot.”
Generally, people tend to either demonize or victimize sex workers, either label claiming that they’re incapable of having agency. Yet these women obviously do. And they want the world to know. Audacia Ray says it well, “It’s important to me to be outspoken because I’m putting my cunt where my sex-positive mouth is. The combination of talking, writing, and doing is really the only way to destigmatize sex work and diverse sexualities generally.”
Write on, ladies!