Anyone who looks through the profiles of sex workers regularly is going to notice a pattern of racism, particularly in the form of escorts stating “No Black Men” or “NBA” meaning “No Blacks Allowed” on their profiles. When I am scrolling through the profiles of other escorts to get an idea of what hourly rates are like, I see lots of variations of these racist policies. Since many sites have a Q&A section on profiles, I also get to see the excuses that other sex workers make for these. Most commonly, I see escorts cite bad experiences with Black men as the reason for their policy, or their supposed lack of attraction.
This culture of racism influences the attitude of clients. I will often have clients who will book me and assert that they are white, sometimes in response to my refusing their booking, as if it is a trait that should make them a desirable client. In contrast, the most common first message I receive from Black clients is them asking me if I will see Black men. My profile had originally been absent of any mention of race, because I see no good reason to exclude people on that basis. After about a month of messages from clients asserting their whiteness and Black clients seeming afraid to approach me, I added a section to my profile which stated that I will see clients of all races and backgrounds. Immediately, I was approached by more Black men.
Many Black men choosing not to contact escorts who do not explicitly state that they will see clients of any race makes a lot of sense, once you realize that it has become so acceptable to reject them that people will proudly state it in their profiles. It isn’t worth it for them to waste their time contacting escorts who will ultimately reject them, or making bookings without a mention of their race that lead to uncomfortable appointments with escorts who are hostile towards them.
Sex workers are not attracted to our clients, as a general rule. I don’t see any of my clients before they arrive at my door, and if I arrange a booking by text then I haven’t even heard their voice. For the escorts who claim it is about preference, their preference is clearly an explicitly racist one, because I am certain that they aren’t attracted to a large portion of their white clients either. If they were filtering based on attraction, they’d be asking for pictures before a meeting. They don’t.
Though I cannot speak for all escorts, as someone who has been seeing clients for many years, I have had bad experiences with men of various races. Every escort I have known on a person level has confided in me about assaults or “boundary pushing” or theft from various clients. What I have seen, is that a white client causing harm is not seen as a reason to never see a white client again, but many escorts will generalize an experience with one Black client to all Black men. This is explicitly racist.
Plenty of the people with these “No Blacks Allowed” policies have had these rules since they first started escorting, with claims of bad experiences being a cover, of course. There are pervasive racist stereotypes which people believe, that cause them to believe it is valid to reject clients based on race. I think it is also notable that while some escorts will have “Whites Only” rules on their profile, it is much more common to see them specifically exclude Black clients rather than all non-white ones.
Since the inclusions of a note in my profile that I will see clients of any race, I also get frequent messages from white men informing me that they will not book me because of it. These messages often include racist ranting, graphic descriptions of me being assaulted, and comments about how I am now worthless. Clients like this, in addition to their racism, are also the type of clients who are likely to objectify the escorts they see and to get violent, from what I’ve seen. These messages are disturbing, but that part of my profile that caused them to react so negatively has also saved me from potentially seeing them as a client, by causing them to reveal their behaviour and mentality about escorts.
When trying to discuss the racism within the sex work community, there is a huge issue with anti-sexwork stigma and people outside of the community deciding to contribute to discourse about it. We all need to call out racism and we also need to recognize that sometimes it is best to allow that discussion to go on amongst members of a community when we are uninformed about them. I would recommend the work of people like @thotscholar or @uppittynegress (twitter links embedded) for those who would like to read their work, and I would suggest thotscholar’s patreon specifically for people who have some money to spare and want to read some theory!
Often when I see discussion about racism amongst escorts online, I will notice people suggesting that sex work should be legalized and regulated and therefore subject to anti-discrimination law so that escorts can be sued if they refuse clients based on race. Not only is a legalized and regulated approach not what sex worker advocacy organizations want (since it has a multitude of issues), but the expectation that there should ever be a form of coercion making sex workers accept clients is also troubling. It is racist for escorts to refuse clients on the basis that they are Black. That does not mean the solution is to force those racist escorts to see Black clients or face criminalization, as members of an already marginalized group.
Anti-discrimination laws are important. Within sex work, they would be unfairly applied to criminalize a group that is made up of mostly women who are multiply-marginalized, with the end result still not resolving the actual issue. Sites hosting escorts could stop allowing such statements within profiles, and within the community we should do more to educate people and also hold them accountable for their racist actions. In my opinion, involving the legal system even more with a profession that has historically been criminalized to an extreme degree, would be neither effective nor desirable.
It’s also important that we acknowledge that Black escorts are paid lower rates than white ones. In the UK, white British escorts are able to charge the highest amounts, with white immigrants usually coming second, followed by those of other races. The racism is not just apparent in the policies of white escorts, but also in the choices of clients and how much they are willing to pay based on race. Both issues feed into each other, and the isolation of sex work as well as prostitution being forced to remain underground allows this racism to become more overt and apparent.
There’s no excuse for the policies that many escorts have, based on race. It is not something that you can forgive based on their claims of bad experiences.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 