Sex Workers vs. Feminism

I am a young woman.  I am 22 years old (at the time of this post), a student in college, and a sex worker.  I’m currently an exotic dancer at a local club.  It’s a job I enjoy for more than it’s pay, namely it’s flexibility, which comes in handy for scheduling around tests and personal events.  I’m a clean dancer and I’m not ashamed of being a sex worker. 

I am also an ardent feminist.  To some, sex work and feminism do not mix.  Double standards are constant.

A former regular customer of mine and myself were sitting at a bar having a couple beers together, discussing economics, his son, my job.  We met at my club five months prior and continued the friendship when he decided he no longer wanted to come to the club anymore (due to an ex-girlfriend now working there.)  He’s deeply protective of me, and had mentioned more than once he worried about me when I went to work.  I mentioned I was fine, that I had a number of bouncers around me at any given time, that this club has had very few incidents in the 15 years it’s been open, and that I was never alone with a customer ever.  He knew that from the several months he came to see me and me alone.  He took a long swig of his beer and dipped his head.  

"I don’t know why you dance.  You’re so much better than that."

Therein lies a double standard.  The dancers are ‘so much better’ than their line of work, but the customers are not lowering themselves by walking in the front door of a strip club.  

Why is it that a woman being sexual is somehow beneath her?  Why is it that a woman in the sex industry is somehow lowering herself?  Why is he, as a man and former customer, not in any way lowering himself by essentially paying for the priviledge of seeing a girl naked?  Why is she somehow less for accepting that money in exchange for showing her nude body to him?  It simply does not line up.  It is classic patriarchal bullshit, only repackaged for another instance.

"Are you somehow less for coming to my club to see me naked?"  He paused.

"No."

"Then why do you consider my getting naked for cash somehow less?  Is it bad that a woman be engaged in a job of a sexual nature?"

He stopped to think hard, then looked up.  "Yes."

I took another drink and leveled a stare at him.  "Why?  Are women not allowed to be sexually expressive?  Are we not to be sexual?"

He opened his mouth as if to retort, but nothing came out.  He finally spoke.  "You have a point."

Being a sex worker does not make me less.  Less of a woman, less of a feminist, less of a person.  Hopefully, one by one, the world will come to realize this, someday.