SWARM and THORN recently collaborated on putting together a zine, entitled Nuance Doesn’t Pay the Bills – a work of poetry, prose, and essays from trans sex workers! I was lucky enough to be asked to write a piece for it, The Price of Cisification which I’ve included below. It’s all about the costs associated with pretending to be cis while selling sex as a trans person.
Category Archives: Free
Trans and Intersex Non-Disclosure vs. The “Trap” Stereotype
The choice over whether or not to disclose being trans or intersex to sexual partners can be a difficult one for many people, but the risks and pressures are especially high for those who sell sex. Instead of solely navigating the possibility of gendered violence when disclosure comes up during unexpected flirtations or planned casual sexual encounters, sex workers have to weigh up these issues against the harms that come from poverty if we cannot see enough clients.
Help-A-Hooker Jobs
There are a number of jobs out there with the explicit aim of helping sex workers to find stable employment outside of selling sex. Sometimes they fail in this goal and actually compound our existing struggles, ultimately exploiting us for their own gain.
Pushing Us Offline: Escort Site Censorship
As the Online Safety Act comes into effect in the UK, impacting websites where sex workers advertise our services, we find ourselves on the cusp of a nation-wide censorship effort that will push sex workers towards third party managers and brothel or street work.
Cleaning Up the Streets
When it’s convenient for police officers to do so, sometimes they take a break from criminalizing street sex workers to engage in another kind of abuse against them. They are exploited as an unpaid labour force of informants on their clients.
Sex Work Non-Fiction Reading Recommendations
This is a non-exhaustive list of reading recommendations on the topic of sex work, from books to zines to online articles, that I intend to regularly update.
Hooker Mentality
Tired of reading leftist theory that degrades sex workers, misunderstands the nature of our work, or ignores us altogether? Or maybe you’d like to hear what sex workers’ experiences reveal about capitalism and gender and policing? Hooker Mentality covers all the ways that selling sex can give hookers an insight into the systems which control us all.
Nordic Model Proposed in the UK: How This Would Harm Sex Workers
MPs in the UK want to amend the Police & Crime bill to criminalize paying for sex and get rid of escorting websites! This will harm sex workers.
Hotel Workers and Hooker Hospitality
Having worked in a hotel both as a hospitality worker and as a hooker, I feel as though I’m in a particularly good place to discuss interactions between the two.
Wealthy White Women and Sex Trafficking Anxiety
Irrational fears of being sex trafficked among financially stable white women are created by misogynistic and whorephobic myths around the circumstances in which most sex trafficking happens.
How could you call these wealthy white women whores, when they’re so terrified of the prospect they might be forced into the role of one?
Jack Talks About Sex Work 