Tag: Representations of Sex Workers

‘The Tribe’: Navigating the Beauty and Horror of Silent Children

The film moves through arcs of pity, empathy, and then downright horror. Violence is abrupt and can come from anyone. I was blessed to watch the film with an audience that was one third deaf, and the experience of witnessing visceral scenes with the sounds of hands pounding, slapping, moving around me with frantic finger blurs of American Sign Language made the viewing electric.

the-tribe-exclusive-quad-poster

“The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema; the only thing they lacked was the sound of people talking and noises. In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema. They are mostly what I call ‘photographs of people talking.’ When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise.”

Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock, by François Truffaut

Writer/Director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky said in an interview that he was inspired to write his film The Tribe because he attended a school that was near a school for the deaf when he was younger. (Incidentally, Slaboshpitsky filmed The Tribe at his old school.) There were fights from time to time between students from his school and the deaf students. He carried these memories for many years, finally unleashing them in a film that has gathered both praise, and in some places, ridicule for being a gimmick film, a one-trick pony only being celebrated because it is a story told completely in Ukrainian Sign Language.

There are no subtitles, no voice-overs, no music or sound design. The only sounds we hear are natural noises around the actors–à la dogme films— when they move within rooms slamming doors, are in cars, are outside walking in snow, or the excited vocal inflections emitted from an agitated signer who often uses sharp finger pokes and hand slaps to catch the attention of people not looking them in the eye. Viewing the film is pretty close to Hitchcock’s idea of “pure cinema.” Viewers don’t even know the names of the characters because our eyes have to do all the work, and we are basically resorted to assigning actors descriptive traits for names like New Kid, Kingpin, Boss Man, Blonde homegirl, and Brunette homegirl to track folks. (After viewing the film, I had to go online and check to see if the actors were even assigned names.)

Not since the silent films during the pre-sound era assigned to me during college have I experienced a film where I had to work at understanding and interpreting human interactions with visuals only. The fascinating part of Slaboshpitsky intentionally making viewers work at comprehension is that my interpretation of the film might be completely different from someone else.

first day of school

Sergey (Grigoriy Fsenko) is a deaf high school student who tries to fit into his new boarding school and becomes ensnared in a criminal enterprise ran by a gang of older male students and a woodshop teacher. They are into everything. Petty theft, burglary, prostitution, bullying, and assaults on other students. These kids are the poster children for Thug Life Ukraine.

group fight

For the first ten minutes of the film, we are forced to orient ourselves. What may appear to be a slow and tedious start is really narrative time designed to acclimate and settle hearing viewers into leaning on visual cues full throttle. We become Sergey trying to figure out the place and its pecking order. Sergey is given instant sympathy because he has no idea what he is getting himself into. He can barely find a room and a bed to occupy before he’s pushed around and forced to sleep in the hallway on his first night. Eventually Sergey is jumped into the “gang” and the film branches out to the other characters. We are witness to the evening prostitution where two teen-aged girls, who are part of the crew, are driven off campus to truck stops by the woodshop teacher and a student handler/pimp. The girls have quick hook-ups inside the trucks, the teen handler/pimp collects the money, and at the end of the night, the woodshop teacher drives them all back to school.

The film moves through arcs of pity, empathy, and then downright horror. Violence is abrupt and can come from anyone. I was blessed to watch the film with an audience that was one third deaf, and the experience of witnessing visceral scenes with the sounds of hands pounding, slapping, moving around me with frantic finger blurs of American Sign Language made the viewing electric.

girls in the tribe

There are only two main female characters in The Tribe, a blonde and a brunette who are dorm roommates and apparently best friends. It would be easy for me to write that they are just objects used throughout the film. They are. But all the underlings in the gang are objects. All bodies are commodities used for profit, from the elementary-aged boys sent out to sell cheap souvenirs on the trains and streets (while also lifting a wallet and a purse or two), to the crews that roam the streets at night to roll over some unlucky citizen walking home at night with groceries.

Unfortunately for this film, the female presence is only used for sexual exploitation. The females are not calling any shots and aren’t bossing any underlings around. They are there to pleasure men. Perhaps it would be different if there were some teen-aged boys also being prostituted along with the girls when they were dropped off at the truck stop. Or at least more girls participating on the stroll and other girls involved in different parts of the criminal enterprise other than prostitution. At least there would be a balance and a sense of “it is what it is.” (I’m not advocating that seeing more girls pimped in the film makes it better in that world, but it might give a semblance of business is business and the female characters were there to make money and have agency for themselves too.) This shouldn’t deter people from seeing the film, it’s just my observation that sometimes screenwriters stick women in scripts for titillation purposes and not as fully realized characters integral to the plot.

There is a lot of sex in the film that isn’t romanticized. People fuck. And not for love. This leads to one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Anya (Yana Novikova) completes a night of sex work and Sergey (her new handler/pimp) walks her back to their dorm. As handler payment (a reward given to the guys who escort the two girls at night to the trucks), Anya hikes up her skirt inside a cold dirty room, bends over and offers her backside to Sergey to do what he will. It’s very clinical, no foreplay, just stick your penis here boy and be done. Sergey flips the encounter on Anya and makes a pallet on the floor and mounts her missionary style so he can see her face. He tries to kiss her, but she protests and turns her head. Eventually they switch positions again, and while sexually spooning her, he manipulates her clitoris and Anya appears aroused and surprised that a male would take time to pleasure her during the act. We watch everything in real time (and full nudity), and when they climax, Anya kisses him. It’s a lovely scene because the sex moves from a passionless unfeeling payment fuck for Anya, (although Sergey is clearly in love with her) into a tender moment where we witness the first sign of emotional connection between anyone in the film. It’s a plot point that eventually spirals the film toward a cringe-worthy abortion sequence and then onto its horrific conclusion.

abortion in The Tribe

The sex added a layer to Sergey’s character that I wasn’t expecting. The audience assumes from his earlier awkwardness that he was just a virginal follower, clumsy with girls, and knowing nothing. But watching their sex scene I was struck at how insistent he was at touching Anya in a particular way, moving her into positions not with awkward fumblings, but with an experienced need to please her. It was the first clue Sergey wasn’t what he seemed. Later in the film we find out that we were wrong about him from the start.

The conclusion of The Tribe reminded me of Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. It is brutal and heart-wrenching in its abrupt closure. The film stays with you. I spent a few days trying to process what it meant to me as a viewer. Was my interpretation of the events correct? Did my eyes deceive me? What social clues did I miss because I don’t know Sign Language? The Tribe was pretty close to pure cinema. It has a seventies realism that I miss in movies today, and the actors look like regular people, not Hollywood augmented look-alikes. The cast is made up of deaf untrained actors who do a hell of a job bringing this world to life. It’s not a film for everyone, but I hope people will step out of their comfort zone to watch it. It will haunt you.

brutal ending

 

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja can be heard co-hosting Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room (the latest episode featuring Empire TV series writer Carlito Machete). Her most recent Sci Fi short story is in Uncanny Magazine, and she can be found on Twitter lurking in the tags #SaturdayNightSciFi and #FridayNightHorror @LisaBolekaja

‘Trainspotting’ Is ‘Pretty Woman’ For Boys

From the ‘Bitch Flicks’ that brought you “‘Birdman’ Is Black Swan For Boys” and “‘Fight Club’ Is Pride And Prejudice For Boys,” comes the thrilling conclusion of our Filmic Forced Feminization Trilogy: “‘Trainspotting’ is ‘Pretty Woman For Boys”! No, really.

Choose wife.
Choose wife.

 

Written by Brigit McCone.

From the Bitch Flicks that brought you “Birdman Is Black Swan For Boys” and “Fight Club Is Pride And Prejudice For Boys,” comes the thrilling conclusion of our Filmic Forced Feminization Trilogy: “Trainspotting is Pretty Woman For Boys”! No, really.

Consider the openings: Renton runs down the road to the voiceover of the iconic “choose life” monologue, before colliding with a car. The camera shares the perspective of the car’s occupants, stalled in their protective shell of metal, as this threatening creature of countercultural anarchy peers in at them. And laughs. Now consider our camera sharing Richard Gere’s perspective, stalled in the protective shell of his luxury vehicle, as the threatening prostitute of countercultural anarchy peers in at him. And laughs.

Vivian is an antidote to the stale marital maneuverings of mainstream culture. She flaunts her lack of pantyhose to scandalized elderly couples. She tells matchmaking materialists that she’s simply using Edward for sex. She regards the hypocrisy of mainstream respectability politics with undisguised contempt. Our assumptions about the inferiority of a prostitute’s life choices are challenged by the defiant anthem that plays as she struts: “things you only dream about, wild women do.” Just as Trainspotting dignifies its hero’s autonomy by openly acknowledging the attraction of heroin and the logic of his choice, so Pretty Woman openly acknowledges the attraction of sex work as social rebellion, financial autonomy and independence. Vivian might as well have her own monologue about the pressure to “choose wife.” Why would she want to do a thing like that?

Renton and Vivian laugh at your respectability.
Renton and Vivian laugh at your respectability.

 

Of course, the film ends with Vivian choosing wife, just as Renton finally chooses life, but they choose it on their terms. I’ve written before about how the supposed antifeminism of “whores” and “white knights” has blinded us to the politics of autonomy in Pretty Woman. Scratch its candy-coated surface, or scratch the edgily aggressive snarl of Trainspotting, and you reveal a shared approach to the challenges of stigma raised by prostitution and drug addiction. Such as…

 The Failure Of Paternalism

Putting up with crap.
Putting up with crap.

 

The remarkable results that Portugal has achieved by decriminalizing drug use and treating addiction as sickness rather than crime, mirror the impressive achievements of New Zealand’s  decriminalizing of sex work. Our urge to discipline and punish individual choice has been ineffective in preventing “vice,” sustaining organized crime and social inequality in the process. Trainspotting and Pretty Woman reflect this reality. Renton’s initial decision to come off drugs is presented as a spontaneous choice from his inner resolve. Later, his parents attempt to enforce a cure by locking him in his bedroom to go cold turkey. The legal system attempts to enforce a cure through the courts. Neither of these paternalist pressures are shown to be effective. Similarly, Vivian consistently refuses Edward’s attempts to treat her as an object of pity or a mistress, preferring the independence of sex work to the subordination demanded by paternalist savior narratives. Only by admitting his own need to be rescued, and offering full romantic equality on Vivian’s terms, can Edward persuade her to mainstream.

More than ineffective, each film presents social stigma as actively counterproductive. It is while independently trying to come off heroin, without medical support, that Renton must make his iconic dive into the crap-filled Worst Toilet In Scotland for his suppositories. It is when trying to mainstream that he becomes mentally vulnerable to the condescending pity and judgmental attitudes of others, driving his relapse. Likewise, it is when attempting to mainstream that Vivian must endure the metaphorical crap of the Worst Boutique On Rodeo Drive and it is while passing as respectable that she becomes mentally vulnerable to the humiliating judgments of Stuckey, where a prostitute’s uniform would make her feel defiantly “prepared.” Both Trainspotting and Pretty Woman argue that social stigma fuels defiance and deters mainstreaming. Though each film freely acknowledges the hazards of the lifestyle portrayed, from Pretty Woman‘s dead hooker in a dumpster and assault by Stuckey, to Trainspotting‘s dead baby and AIDS casualties, they remain firmly opposed to the hypocritical righteousness of dominant culture. Witness their choice of Begbie and Stuckey to represent mainstream ideology.

Begbie and Stuckey: Dominant Hypocrites

Enduring all manner of cunts
Enduring all manner of cunts

 

Phil Stuckey is a cunt, in the utterly unreclaimed, gender-neutral, Scottish sense of that word. He is a man who will eagerly solicit prostitutes, yet defend his right to hit them with a superior snarl of “she’s a whore!” In this, he mirrors Trainspotting‘s Begbie, who is content to profit from drug deals while righteously sneering over an addict’s choice to “poison their body with that shite.” Both Begbie and Stuckey have a toxic combination of arrogance and insecurity, a continual need to prove their status at the expense of others. The suppressed violence in Stuckey’s craving for the corporate “kill” erupts in his assault on Vivian, after being denied financial satisfaction. Begbie is chronically violent, craving the adrenalin of a brawl as much as addicts crave their drug of choice. In short, in remarkably similar ways, Begbie and Stuckey are deeply unpleasant cunts. It is into the mouths of these cunts that each film places the judgments of dominant society. Begbie expresses dominant opinions about drug addicts and trans* women. Stuckey expresses dominant opinions about sex workers. Both are depicted as dominant, domineering, and thriving.

Trainspotting and Pretty Woman choose to use the repulsiveness of Begbie/Stuckey as the spur that finally decides Renton/Vivian on mainstreaming. A classic savior narrative would use a righteous role model to represent the attraction of mainstream values; Trainspotting and Pretty Woman instead use the nauseous vileness of their representatives as catalyst. As an addict, Renton is forced to fill the pockets of the world’s Begbies. As a prostitute, Vivian is forced to service the ego of the world’s Stuckeys. By presenting mainstreaming itself as an act of resistance to mainstream exploitation, both films are able to realistically acknowledge its health and safety benefits without sacrificing their raised middle finger to mainstream righteousness. They resist the narrative of the mainstream’s moral superiority, not only through the repulsively mainstream Begbie and Stuckey, but through the lovable, marginalized Spud and Kit.

 Spud and Kit: Performance Anxiety

With God's help, they'll conquer this terrible affliction
With God’s help, they’ll conquer this terrible affliction

 

The triumphant Renton is separated from Spud, and the triumphant Vivian is separated from Kit, not by their moral superiority but by their superior ability to perform socially. In Trainspotting‘s court scene, Renton effortlessly convinces as a clean-cut “pretty addict” (the kind you’d like to meet) as he plausibly swears “with God’s help, I shall conquer this terrible affliction,” avoiding jail. By contrast, Spud is nervous and inarticulate. He lacks Renton’s presentation skills and faces jail as a result. Kit suffers similar anxiety. Where Vivian effortlessly adapts to luxury clothes, Kit is afraid to hug Vivian in case she wrinkles her. She seems defensive in Edward’s hotel, taunting the clientele. Kit could not fake the respectability and “class” required from Edward’s escort. By pairing Renton with Spud, and Vivian with Kit, both films expose the nature of respectability as essentially hypocritical performance.

Admirably, neither Spud nor Kit ever punish their friends for their success. Spud allows Renton to steal the group’s drug money, knowing that Renton will be harshly punished if the alarm is raised. Kit appears genuinely delighted at Vivian’s good fortune for meeting Edward, and roots for her to find lasting happiness with him. In many ways, both Spud and Kit are morally superior to the protagonists. This moral worth is recognized and rewarded financially by both heroes: Vivian gives Kit a share of Edward’s payment and Renton leaves Spud a share of the drug money. Will Kit be able to become a Renton of recovered addiction and a Vivian of romantic success? Will Spud? We are only able to root for Kit and Spud’s success because Trainspotting and Pretty Woman present a world in which doom is not inevitable and good fortune is possible.

 Inevitability vs. Agency

He wants the fairy tale
He wants the fairy tale

 

It is fundamentally dehumanizing to suggest that a group in society is inevitably doomed. We know that our own lives are at the mercy of luck and chance; our rewards and punishments are uneven and not proportional to what we deserve, if deserving can even be measured. We make choices, from moment to moment, and we struggle for our own happiness as best we can. To deny someone that choice, that chance and that struggle is to deny our identification with them, as well as any possible support of them. If their doom is inevitable, none of us can be held responsible for failing to prevent it, or even for causing it. Which helps to explain the disposable hookers of Grand Theft Auto.

Renton’s doom is not inevitable. He stood the same chance of contracting AIDS as his fellow addicts; some were lucky, others were not. Likewise, a prostitute who climbs into the car of a slick, suited yuppy could be finding love and fortune with Pretty Woman‘s Edward, or facing gruesome death at the hands of American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman. The difference is in film genre, not life choice. Here’s an interesting point: have you ever heard anyone point out that Trainspotting depicts heroin use as the direct result of hetero-male sexual failure? Renton and Spud are both shown relapsing after humiliating failures in their attempts to connect with women. Tommy turns to heroin after a bad break-up. Yet, somehow, no causal relationship is assumed between a man’s sex life and his choices. So, why is it so impossible to imagine a prostitute as a survivor of sexual abuse, without the dehumanizing implication that this has mindlessly predetermined her choice to do sex work? Trainspotting‘s Sick Boy and Renton are equally allowed to be haunted by their failures in childcare, and Renton to hallucinate an accusing baby, without being judged “babycrazy” as Ally McBeal. Why is Vivian a “tart with a heart,” yet Renton can show scruples over underage sex and give cash gifts to Spud without being a “magic addict”?

Though Hollywood no longer has a Hays Code demanding punishment for characters who break the law, films still enforce that convention for both sexes. Stuckey’s devastating corporate “kills” are socially acceptable; Vivian’s provision of sex acts for a mutually agreed fee is not. Therefore, it is Vivian that we are conditioned to expect to see suffering consequences, until Pretty Woman flips that script. According to cinematic convention, stealing a bag of drug money should be the beginning of a No Country For Old Men-style thriller of inevitable doom. In Trainspotting, it is the hero’s happy ending. By offering its heroin addict a chance to evade all consequences for his actions, and to claim the prosperity and respectability that is supposedly the social reward for virtue, the film calls our bluff. If we truly pity the tragic fate of society’s doomed victims, we should rejoice in Renton’s lucky escape. However, as Oscar Wilde puts it: “anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it takes a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.” Spud and Kit might have that very fine nature, but do we? Mark Renton has no time for your puritanical need to see him punished for his life choices. Renton is going to blend in with the mainstream and become indistinguishable from all the other hypocrites. Renton was born slippy, and he’s going to get away with it. Because Renton has secretly been Cinder-fuckin-rella all along.

What more proof do you need that Trainspotting is Pretty Woman for boys?

Pretty addict, walking down the street
Pretty addict, walking down the street

 

Brigit McCone always thought Vivian should have chosen Barney the hotel manager, but recognizes he’s probably married. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and irritating Fight Club fanboys.

‘MasterChef’ and Internalized Misogyny

Being a feminist can be hard, like when it interferes with my god-given right to irrationally hate reality TV contestants. The “love-to-hate” feeling is basically the entire point of watching reality television. There is no room for guilty consciences. And yet, this past season of ‘MasterChef USA’ forced me and my partner to wrestle with why we were hating on our least favorite contestants, because the obvious answer was that we’re sexist jerks.

Being a feminist can be hard, like when it interferes with my god-given right to irrationally hate reality TV contestants. The “love-to-hate” feeling is basically the entire point of watching reality television. There is no room for guilty consciences. And yet, this past season of MasterChef USA forced me and my partner to wrestle with why we were hating on our least favorite contestants, because the obvious answer was that we’re sexist jerks.

Contestants from Season 5 of 'MasterChef USA' make shocked faces.
Contestants from Season 5 of MasterChef USA make shocked faces.

Examining my sexist reaction to this season of MasterChef made me realize the pervasive role of gender expectations in the series. MasterChef distinguishes itself from other cooking reality competition shows by focusing on “home cooks” without any formal training. Between traditional gendered work divisions regarding who cooks at home (somehow persisting even in the era of the “foodie”), and the rampant sexism of the professional culinary industry, the line between “home cooks” and “chefs” is undeniably gendered.

But the MasterChef producers have done their best to obscure this dynamic: there are a roughly equal number of male and female contestants at the start of each series; and over five seasons, the collective male/female breakdown between the top ten, top five, and top three contestants stays close to 50-50 (26-24 women-to-men in the top ten, 12-13 in the top five, and 8-7 in the top three). This steady equality might be the result of some producer meddling, but MasterChef contestants are never explicitly separated into gender ranks (whereas on the long-running Hell’s Kitchen, also hosted by Gordon Ramsay, has a “boys team” and “girls team” for the bulk of each season, but not necessarily a steady rate of loss from each side as one team is generally made safe from elimination in each episode).

'MasterChef' season 5's top three (from left): Courtney, Leslie, and Elizabeth
MasterChef season 5’s top three (from left): Courtney, Leslie, and Elizabeth

This hasn’t stopped the MasterChef contestants from breaking into gendered ranks. A recurring theme is for male contestants to look down on creating desserts and baking as lesser talents, and to dismiss their female competitors’ successes in those challenges. The quintessential example is the first-season elimination of would-be front-runner Sharone, a cocksure Finance Dude, by Whitney, the Personification of Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice, in a challenge to bake a chocolate souffle. Sharone’s attempts to “elevate the dish” (the second most liver-damaging item on the MasterChef drinking game, after Gordon Ramsay using “most amazing” to describe an ingredient) with sea salt backfired, and Whitney’s straightforward but perfectly executed souffle carried her forward to become the first US MasterChef winner. In his exit interview, Sharone expressed lament that “the pastry princess” had the chance to knock him from the competition in a baking challenge.

Season 1's "Pastry Princess" Whitney
Season 1’s “Pastry Princess” Whitney

The High Cuisine Pretenders of MasterChef, who scoff at “rustic” challenges to make comfort food and awkwardly attempt molecular gastronomy, have been nearly exclusively male contestants. They are not there to be crowned “the best home cook in America,” they are there to be discovered as culinary geniuses. These guys usually flame out before the top 10. But notably, even the more grounded male competitors usually say they will use their winnings to open a restaurant, while the women in the competition often focus on the opportunity of the winner’s published cookbook, and see the $250,000 prize as a financial break rather than a seed investment.

The “this will change my life” reality TV cliche applies neatly to the MasterChef Season 5 HitchDied Hateoff. My most-hated contestant, season-winner Courtney, leaned on this trope with all her weight. My husband’s most-hated contestant, Leslie (second-runner up), was notably privileged and “didn’t need” the winnings.

Man-who-looks-naked-without-a-yacht-under-him Leslie
Leslie, no doubt dreaming of his yacht

But this is not just a matter of haves and have-nots, because of what Courtney and Leslie each do for a living. Leslie is a stay-at-home father with a very successful wife. Or, as fellow contestant Cutter put it, “an ex-beautician house bitch.”

Courtney, per her talking head caption, is an aerial dancer. But in her own words, she frames her work as the desperate choice of a woman struggling to make ends meet: “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. No being able to pay my rent, I made the difficult, embarrassing decision to work in a gentleman’s club.”

Courtney shown with her job title, "aerial dancer"
Courtney shown with her job title, aerial dancer

And so the HitchDied Hate-off for MasterChef Season 5 became mired in dueling accusations of antifeminism. Collin would insist it is not that Leslie is a metrosexual stay-at-home dad that makes him unlikable, but that he’s haughty phony. I would insist that I don’t judge Courtney for her job, just her attitude about it. (Neither of us could get away with saying we hate them for being untalented chefs or cruel competitors, they both clearly deserved their success on the show.)

Runner-up Elizabeth says "if Courtney wins this... I will stab kittens"
Runner-up Elizabeth says, “If Courtney wins this… I’m going to stab kittens”

But I also made fun of Courtney for her aggressively performed femininity (her kitchen uniform is poufy dresses and towering heels) and breathy baby voice, and I can’t deny the sexism in finding these “girly” traits annoying. Especially because I’m a big fan of poufy dresses myself, and might wear towering heels if I weren’t so clumsy. (I thought maybe the heels were to “keep in shape for work,” but aerial dancers perform barefoot, right?) MasterChef‘s narrative didn’t let me feel alone in my hate: other female contestants (including runner-up Elizabeth) complained in their talking heads that Courtney benefited from favoritism from the judges, something we never heard when former Miss Delaware Jennifer came out on top of season 2. So why is Courtney so specially hate-able? Do we hate her because she’s beautiful? Do we hate her because she does sex work? Do we hate her because she’s a girly girl? Is there some other answer here that doesn’t make me a bad feminist for hating Courtney?

Gif of camera zooming in on Courtney's glittering high heels
Gif of camera zooming in on Courtney’s glittering high heels

And is my internalized misogyny to blame, or the MasterChef producers for exploiting it? I couldn’t tell you what any of the other contestants in four seasons of MasterChef wore on their feet, because they didn’t cut ShoeCam every time they walked their dish to the judges. Judge Joe Bastianich bizarrely wears running shoes with his super fancy suits, and I think that took me three seasons to notice. But we saw more of Courtney’s shoes than we saw of some contestant’s faces. It seemed like a sneaky way for the producers to remind us “Courtney is a stripper!” in between her self-shaming confessions, because reality TV producers would see a woman being “saved” from sex work the greatest possible form of the “this will change my life” narrative.

So it goes. Courtney gets her trophy and cookbook, the producers get their “provocative” storyline, Leslie probably has enough money to do whatever he wants anyway, and the HitchDieds will continue irrationally hating reality show contestants despite our feminist misgivings.

Have you ever hated-to-hate a reality TV contestant? Have you caught yourself hating people on TV for sexist reasons?

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town and slightly-better-than-mediocre home cook.

Sex and The ‘Penny Dreadful’

The control of sex and sexuality was a fascination of the 19th century. In a reaction to the thought to be morally bankrupt licentiousness of the regency period, Victorian sexual values were characterized by repression, control and purity. Fitting as a common theme of the era was man’s victory over nature. It was a time when the medical establishment was obsessed with classifying and categorizing and “disorders” such as homosexuality and hysteria were invented

Penny Dreadful is a dark gothic horror television show; its main appeal is its excellent cast, which includes Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, and Josh Hartnett, and the fact that it features popular horror characters that are now in the public domain, including both doctor and creature Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, Mina Harker,  and Van Helsing. The London it portrays is dark and brooding and slides with ease between the unfettered opulence of the rich to degradation of the poor. The show manages to capture the atmospheric blend of strife and ambition that seems to characterize the period of industrialization.

The control of sex and sexuality was a fascination of the 19th century. In a reaction to the thought-to-be morally bankrupt licentiousness of the regency period, Victorian sexual values were characterized by repression, control and purity. Fitting as a common theme of the era was man’s victory over nature. It was a time when the medical establishment was obsessed with classifying and categorizing and “disorders” such as homosexuality and hysteria were invented. The latter led to the invention of the vibrator as women were treated for the condition by being stimulated to orgasm by doctors. Ironically, masturbation in men (women were not really thought to be capable) was heavily pathologised and blamed for a vast array of ills. However the obsession with strict sexual morality and the regulation of sexual impulses meant society was obsessed with talking about and policing it, hence the prevalence of sexuality as a theme in both medicine and art during the period. Parallel to the puritanical public standards existed a large private world of sex work and pornography.

The character of Brona Croft, played by Billie Piper, a northern Irish sex worker plagued with consumption, represents the particular paradox of the sex worker in the 19th century. Her life is difficult, she is poor, and there is the ever-present threat of violence which is made apparent on the show by the reports of sex workers being torn apart by what might be the re-emergence of Jack the Ripper. However, Brona also on a certain level exists outside of the highly patriarchal social structures of the day. She makes her own money, she decides how to spend it and chooses her own relationships, freedoms most other women do not have. Brona is a fully realized character in a way that sex workers normally are not on television. We learn that she came to the trade because she was replaced by a machine in her factory job, but she prefers it anyway because the money is better and she doesn’t have to spend her days cooped up inside never seeing the sun. She speaks eloquently about the grim poverty of her childhood and her escape from an abusive relationship. Her sex work is not viewed as a barrier to her having meaningful romantic relationships. Her profession is an aspect of her but it is not who she is. I can’t believe just how refreshing it is to have a sex worker on television that is fully human in her own right and not just a plot device to be thrown away at the writers whims. Brona certainly does not fit into the “happy hooker” trope. There are many issues that she has to contend with that the show addresses; some are due to her work and some are not. What matters though is that Brona’s life is not tragic simply because she is a sex worker, nor is it perfect because she is. For example, she is dying of consumption, but this is portrayed to be more a symptom of her poverty rather than a punishment for her work.

penny_dreadful_520x300x24_fill_h77975145

 

Vanessa Ives (played by Eva Green), on the other hand, is a Victorian lady of leisure. She lives with Sir Malcolm Murray, a famed explorer of the African continent, and their relationship is not explained until mid-season but seems vaguely paternal. What we do know is that Vanessa is in the possession of some super natural abilities and is helping Sir Malcolm to locate his daughter who is currently under the power of a vampire. Vanessa’s sexuality is constantly and consistently pathologised. She ruminates on whether viewing a sexual act for the first time awoken a wickedness inside of her. Her very first sexual experience ended up breaking up two families who had been very close and triggering her first episode, of what is referred to by two different doctors over the course of the season, a “psycho-sexual” illness. The treatments that she is subjected for this illness amount very literally to torture and Vanessa’s mother ends up dying of shock when witnessing a display of her daughter’s sexuality. For Vanessa, her sexuality is not the source of her freedom from restrictive patriarchal norms of the day; it is a curse that she must control with utmost care otherwise the consequences could be devastating. Vanessa’s sexuality is dangerous–not just to her but to the people around her.

 

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Having the two characters on the same show makes for a really interesting dynamic. It seems to capture the sheer obsession Victorian society had with the policing of sexuality and channelling it into the proper avenues while at the same time there existed many women who manage to carve out lives outside the structures of society despite the extreme social disapproval. Overall, the show manages to capture the two sides of the society quite nicely and explores both characters in a way that does justice to their humanity.

 

Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri

Representations of Sex Workers: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for Representations of Sex Workers Theme Week here.

For a Good Time, Call …: A Modern Rom Com About Friendship by Scarlett Harris

But For a Good Time, Call… doesn’t think of itself as better than other films with sex workers as their protagonists, with Lauren using Katie’s virginity against her as a metaphor for her insecurity when they have their first major fight, a prevalent attitude that buys into virgins being lesser versions of sex-having humans. As Vivian in Pretty Woman resents Edward for making her “feel cheap,” Lauren’s treatment of her housemate brings up feelings of worthlessness for Katie. “You make me feel like I’ll never be good enough for you,” she cries. It seems we can’t win either way: women are slut- and prude-shamed no matter our real or perceived bedroom habits.

Beyond the Mainstream: How Indie Films See Sex Workers by Nicole Elwell

Welcome to the Rileys and Starlet are not flawless examples of how to depict sex workers in film, but they are a step in the right direction. With Hollywood’s repetitive use of sex workers as one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs with a single purpose, the indie genre often gives sex workers, both supporting characters and protagonists, expressed thoughts and feelings, making them fleshed out and human.

Porno Moms and the Sexual Healing of Family in Boogie Nights by Rebecca Willoughby

The vision of Eddie/Dirk’s home life at the beginning of the film shows us that no family is without its failures, and that true family and community bolsters individuals while forgiving and healing these flaws. The film is progressive in its inclusivity (of male, female, and queer characters), and specifically in its treatment of Amber as she constructs her own version of motherhood and family, for better or worse.

Randy defines the male sex worker in ways that are diametrically opposed to more traditional depictions of female sex workers. He is not oppressed by his clients, controlled by a pimp, or violently threatened until the very end. Even then, such “threats” are delivered as a comedy of errors after a group of husbands discover their wives have been ordering a lot of pizza with “extra anchovies,” the code for Randy’s clandestine services. Thus, he enjoys a much more privileged kind of work as a casual summer gigolo than as a professional prostitute who is often trapped in such work for extended periods of time and trapped by dominating patriarchal forces.

Some clues for her motives are in the scenes between Abby and her spouse. They are affectionate and loving with each other, even when they’re alone, but the sex has gone out of their marriage. After a disastrous first encounter with an escort, we feel Abby’s ache of longing when a second “better” escort begins to touch her. Later we see Eleanor’s first client, a 23-year-old virgin, react to Eleanor’s touch in much the same way.

Pretty Woman depicts a world where everyone is either a card-carrying member of the corporate caste or an obliging subordinate whose primary purpose in life is to serve, drive or blow members of that caste. It is obsessed with things and encourages the audience to share its obsession with things. These include Lotus cars, jets and jewelry. It also sells the City of Angels, of course. Rodeo Drive is one of the stars of the show. In fact, the whole movie is pretty much an extended Visit California commercial.

Season Two Episode One of Sherlock, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” is adapted from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The storyline focuses on Irene Adler, portrayed brilliantly by the arresting Lara Pulver, who has incriminating photographs of a member of nobility that Sherlock must retrieve.

Sex Workers Are Disposable on Game of Thrones by Gaayathri Nair

When we are introduced to Ros, she is working in Winterfell but as war approaches she decides to try her luck in King’s Landing expressing the view that if all the men leave for war there is not going to be much for her in Winterfell. Once there she goes from being “just a sex worker” to getting involved in the politics of the realm by becoming the right hand woman of Little Finger and subsequently double crossing him by becoming an agent for Varys. However despite her many interesting qualities and potential for interesting storylines, Ros basically exists for one reason to provide exposition regarding male characters on the show while naked. She is sexposition personified.

An Authentic Portrayal of a Transgender Sex Worker in Wild Side by Andé Morgan

Like much of Lifshitz’ previous work, Wild Side explores sexuality and emotional intimacy. Thankfully, Stéphanie’s gender identity or Mikhail and Djamel’s bisexuality are not the sole focus, but rather appropriately important facets of their characters.

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work by Deborah Pless

Inara shows all the benefits to the cultural changes of the last 500 years. She’s a Companion, a highly trained and respected sex worker who ministers mostly to dignitaries, businessmen, and other elites. She’s taken a ride on Serenity, the ship around which most of the show’s action centers, because she wants to see the universe. Because she is a Companion, she can write her own ticket – there will always be clients, so long as they stick to planets with some level of economic stability, and she can just rent a shuttle for as long as she wants. Plus, Inara herself is fun, witty, and classy as all get out. She’s the woman we all want to be, and she’s a sex worker. That’s progressive, right?
The problem here comes not from what the show is saying about sex work. It’s saying very complimentary things. The issue is that this show, this wonderful lovely show, is showing us something entirely different. Namely, that sex work is bad and nasty and wrong.

Mark says he wants a girlfriend and that although he understands Rachel is a sex worker, he likes that Rachel makes him feel as though he has a girlfriend. That’s an important distinction that the trailer conveniently cut out. People with disabilities are not children who form childish emotional attachments from fantasies. We understand reality, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to escape it from time to time like everyone else.

On its surface, True Romance comes off as yet another story about a guy who saves a girl from a horrible existence as a sex worker and he protects her forever and they live happily together forever and ever, the end. But, if you’ve ever seen it, you know that this is not the case. Alabama Whitman is a hero in her own right. She’s never apologetic about her sex life or her choices; they are what they are and she’s OK with it.

Sex Workers Telling Our Stories: From DIY Web Shorts to Feature Documentaries by Audacia Ray

Whether we make online videos that directly respond to terrible portrayals of us in the media, videos with the purpose of educating and doing advocacy, or produce feature films, sex workers who make media are constantly pressed up against all of our stereotypes. Over the last decade, I have dealt with documentary media about sex work as an audience member, a subject, and a producer. Whether we’re portrayed as villains or victims, pretty women or desperate girls, sex workers are a popular focus of documentary projects. But the only way to reach beyond simplistic narratives is for sex workers to be involved in the production of these projects.

When I reflect on the recent twitter conversation #notyourrescue project, I think of The Client List as a seriously flawed baby step forward in the portrayal of sex workers in the media: the sex worker is the main character, she is portrayed as making a decision to do sex work in a situation of economic constraint, not abject victimhood. But I can only call it a baby step forward from a perspective of harm reduction.
Navigating male prostitution has always been tricky, but ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 1999) unburdens audiences from tackling any heavily philosophical explications through its potty humor, shallow characters, and offensive depictions of ailments such as Tourette Syndrome, Gigantism, Narcolepsy, and obesity. This same brand of mindless humor is found in ‘Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 2005). However, despite what the movie lacks (and it’s certainly aware of itself as a raunchy, unconventional rom-com), its central themes are love and kindness, and what is perhaps less apparent is the seemingly rare ability to pause and see someone for who they truly are, as opposed to how they may be of service in terms of sex or money. This goofy film featuring Rob Schneider begs a feminist critique not only because the film lacks many multi-dimensional characters, but because it is a prostitution narrative encoded as a story depicting the pursuit of romantic love, rather than a cautionary tale about the dangers of the world’s oldest profession.

 

‘Deuce Bigalow’: Pleasure, Male Likability, and Finding Love Through “Man-Whoring”

Navigating male prostitution has always been tricky, but ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 1999) unburdens audiences from tackling any heavily philosophical explications through its potty humor, shallow characters, and offensive depictions of ailments such as Tourette Syndrome, Gigantism, Narcolepsy, and obesity. This same brand of mindless humor is found in ‘Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo’ (Mike Mitchell, 2005). However, despite what the movie lacks (and it’s certainly aware of itself as a raunchy, unconventional rom-com), its central themes are love and kindness, and what is perhaps less apparent is the seemingly rare ability to pause and see someone for who they truly are, as opposed to how they may be of service in terms of sex or money. This goofy film featuring Rob Schneider begs a feminist critique not only because the film lacks many multi-dimensional characters, but because it is a prostitution narrative encoded as a story depicting the pursuit of romantic love, rather than a cautionary tale about the dangers of the world’s oldest profession.

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

Navigating male prostitution has always been tricky, but Deuce Bigalow:  Male Gigolo (Mike Mitchell, 1999) unburdens audiences from tackling any heavily philosophical explications through its potty humor, shallow characters, and offensive depictions of ailments such as Tourette Syndrome, Gigantism, Narcolepsy, and obesity.  This same brand of mindless humor is found in Deuce Bigalow:  European Gigolo (Mike Mitchell, 2005).  However, despite what the movie lacks (and it’s certainly aware of itself as an unconventional rom-com), its central themes are love and kindness, and what is perhaps less apparent is the seemingly rare ability to pause and see someone for who they truly are, as opposed to how they may be of service in terms of sex or money.  This goofy film featuring Rob Schneider begs a feminist critique not only because the film lacks many multi-dimensional characters, but because it is a prostitution narrative encoded as a story that illustrates the pursuit of romantic love, rather than a cautionary tale about the dangers of the world’s oldest profession.

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We see Deuce’s priorities are obviously askew when he pours Fiji water into his fish tank while he drinks murky tap water.

 

While sex for pay is in fact criminal in most places, we’re positioned to believe that any form of prostitution is also unsafe and downright gross.  However, audiences respond differently to Deuce due to his male status.  Female prostitutes are typically interpreted as vulnerable, desperate, and revolting–quite the contrary, we sympathize with Deuce, we root for Deuce, we like Deuce.  Would most audiences feel the same way about a woman protagonist?  Probably not.  In fact, TJ’s (Eddie Griffin) continued use of terms like “he-bitch” and “man-gina” only serve to further affix a pseudo-stigma to Deuce in his pursuits as a hooker.  Indeed, Deuce is not stigmatized; rather, he’s reigned a sort of hero for his accomplishments as a “he-bitch,” as he helps to develop the self esteem of his clients and urges them to remember that they’re worthy of love.  Also, Rob Schneider is not a traditionally handsome man, which may aid audiences in feeling more at ease with Deuce’s profession.  Gender in comedy is certainly an issue here–many viewers find male characters like Deuce funny precisely because we don’t take men seriously when they’re sexualized, especially awkward, goofy Schneider.  It is this quietly confident brand of masculinity that feminist viewers endorse, if we can excuse the insulting placement of minorities, people with disabilities, and others.  TJ fulfills the stereotyped role of the token Black friend and the experienced pimp, yet he’s Deuce’s only source of guidance in his misadventures as a gigolo.  What is perhaps most troubling is when, in the film’s concluding scene, Deuce spots TJ sitting behind him in court, disguised in “white face” to avoid being accosted by the police for his involvement in pimping.  This disguise surely eliminates any suspicion of wrongdoing or affiliation with the prostitution business.

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We’re struck with the sobering fact that Deuce is indeed desperate, and yet the effect is still one of comedy and likability.

 

A particularly significant scene in this discussion depicts Deuce accidentally taking home an actual prostitute in a classic case of mistaken identity.  Claire adamantly requests $500 for her services, and they argue over who exactly pays who.  We find ourselves comfortable with Deuce’s new career when he insists that he wants only $10, which is clearly the price he believes he’s worth after a kinky woman dresses him as a German tourist and her rabid dog chases him out.  This run-in with a female prostitute is a refreshing reminder to audiences that sex workers can indeed be ambitious and business-savvy, and works as a wake-up call to Deuce that perhaps he should stick to cleaning fish tanks for a living.

TJ uses the term “man-whoring,” which implies that “whoring” itself is a practice reserved exclusively for women.  Deuce agrees to “man-whore” to replace the expensive fish tank that he breaks in Antoine’s home.  However, money is not the motive; Deuce simply wants to do what’s right by replacing the expensive item he broke while housesitting.  We may also note that Deuce returns the money given to him by Kate’s (Arija Bareikis) friends to take her out, and also stands up for her when they argue that she’s “not normal.”  When Deuce first meets Kate, he’s thrilled that she seems so “perfect,” of course not like his other clients who attract unwanted attention in public.  Also vital to unravelling character development is that Deuce’s discovery of Kate’s prosthetic leg takes place during foreplay:  an act of intimacy, exploration, and trust–and he doesn’t bat an eyelash.

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A portly girl scout serves as our surrogate when Deuce answers the door to offers of cookies shortly after he accidentally turns on pornography. “You’re a sick man, and I’m gonna tell!”

 

Each of Deuce’s clients present a challenge:  to “normalize” their bizarre behavior and off-putting appearances.  Deuce takes Ruth (the lovable Amy Poehler), a woman with Tourette Syndrome, to a baseball game so her disorder doesn’t alienate her in public.  He exercises with the hefty Fluisa (Big Boy) and even plays a food trivia game with her, and he accommodates Carol’s (Deborah Lemen) Narcolepsy to prevent self-injury.

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Detective Fowler can’t seem to stop whipping out his junk for Deuce to assess.

 

The film is resolved in a court scene where all of Deuce’s “clients” testify on his behalf.  Tina (Torsten Voges), an exceedingly tall woman from Norway, declares, “Deuce and I never had sex.  It was physically impossible.  It’s true I paid him money to be with him, and I’d do it again because he made me feel good about myself.”  Deuce must admit that he did, in fact, sleep with one woman who was a client, but he asserts that he is in love with her.  He is pardoned since she never actually paid him for sex.  “This whole gigolo thing was just a mistake,” he tells Kate.  His time as a man-whore essentially leads him to love, to a woman he finds ideal.  Deuce refuses to ostracize any of these women simply because they are society’s “throwaways,” and other men have perhaps rejected or abandoned them due to their quirks or impairments.  We can argue that the film hates fat women, tall women, perhaps all women, but we must consider the possibility that these characters represent the hyperbolic caricature images many women imagine of themselves:  “I’m too fat,” “my feet are too big,” “I’m no fun to be with.”  We all have insecurities, especially about our bodies and social identities; however, enter Deuce to confirm that we all have the right to unapologetically be who we are.

All of the “flaws” Deuce’s clients exhibit only serve to highlight that nothing is actually wrong with any of them at all.  Every woman Deuce “pleasures” is “broken” in some way, as the film seems to insist.  Even Kate’s roommate Bergita, a very minor character, is newly blind, a disability which serves as comic relief throughout the movie.  While the placement of disabled, queered, othered, or otherwise “damaged” women in the film is no doubt offensive, these characters undeniably aid in the narrative structure of Deuce Bigalow.  Although Deuce is obviously not destined for life as a sex worker, his sampling of the trade offers viewers the reality that prostitutes are indeed hard workers and human beings.

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Bergita worries that something is wrong with her “cat.”

 

Deuce actually grows by choosing to become a prostitute, primarily because he’s so horrid at it.  His redeeming quality, amid choosing such an unsavory career path, is his unrelenting kindness, his willingness to please, and his natural role as the “good guy.”  Deuce tells Kate, “This whole gigolo thing was just a mistake…but I’m glad it happened, cause I never would have met you.  I never would have known what love was.”  Throughout Deuce’s time as a man-whore, he comes to know himself well, he forges authentic friendships, and he finds the girl of his dreams.  Deuce tells one client, “I just can’t do this.  I’m head over heels for a girl.  We’re going through a rough time, me being a man-whore and all, but I know it’s gonna work out because I love her,” a moment that negotiates the shady boundaries between romance and plain raunchiness.  Although he initially recoils at the idea that he doesn’t bring any women “pleasure,” Deuce provides comfort, support, and friendship to all the women he takes on as clients.  As Ruth explains in court, “Deuce taught me to be comfortable with who I am.”  If we pause to look past the poop jokes, the unoriginal stereotypes, and a cop who can’t stop flashing Deuce his “thin” dick, we can easily detect a genuine person who simply wants what we all want:  love.

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Jenny has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University.  Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema.  You can find her on Pinterest.

‘The Client List’: Baby Steps Toward Empathy for Sex Workers but Ultimately a Tale of the Fallen Woman

When I reflect on the recent twitter conversation #notyourrescue project, I think of ‘The Client List’ as a seriously flawed baby step forward in the portrayal of sex workers in the media: the sex worker is the main character, she is portrayed as making a decision to do sex work in a situation of economic constraint, not abject victimhood. But I can only call it a baby step forward from a perspective of harm reduction.

Jennifer Love Hewitt in The Client List
Jennifer Love Hewitt in The Client List

 

This guest post by Aya de Leon appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

When I first sent literary agents my novel about a former prostitute who starts an escort service and robs rich and unscrupulous men to support a clinic for sex workers, I was told frequently that my character was not relatable or likeable.  What?  She’s robbing rich guys to pay for street-based sex workers to have health care.  What’s not to like?  But in the process, I learned how deeply women have been conditioned not to identify with sex workers, unless they have done sex work or have close relationships with sex workers.  I have friends and family members who are current and former sex workers, so I underestimated the amount of effort that would be needed to make my character “likeable” and “relatable” to mainstream audiences.  While I saw her as a badass, many may have seen her as a wrongdoer.  While I created a story in which she was rewarded for her daring rule-breaking, others might expect her to be punished.

The conventional expectations of female sexual transgression and punishment are often played out on the screen, and the Lifetime movie The Client List is no exception. Samantha Horton (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is a Texas mom on the verge of financial ruin who turns to sex work to save her house and support her family.  For Samantha, sex work becomes a desperate but predictable conclusion from her upbringing as a beauty pageant winner: “This is America.  If a girl is pretty, she’s not supposed to be poor.”

Sam says this in a moment of financial crisis.  She’s standing in a filling station with a gas-guzzling American truck on empty.  Her credit card is declined, and she digs through the wallet of her drunk, self-pitying husband who had to be carried to the car.  She can only find a single dollar for gas to get home to a house that’s weeks from foreclosure.  Sam is a massage therapist, and had applied for what she thought was a non-sex work massage job.  She left abruptly when she found out that the place offered erotic massage and full sexual services.

But in the moment at the gas station, she sits on the verge of financial ruin.  Sam finds the massage parlor’s business card, and tries to talk to her husband about the decision to begin doing sex work.  She prepares to open her heart to him, but he’s passed out.  Sam steps out of her drunk husband’s earshot, and calls to accept the job.

In my novel, the protagonist has a similar revelation.  In her case, she had been a sex worker, but she stopped servicing clients and started a clinic for sex workers.  Then she’s become a madam of an escort service to keep the clinic open in tough times.  However, a billionaire client wants to bring her out of retirement.  Like Sam in The Client List, she initially said no, but then changed her mind when the circumstances got more dire; her clinic building will also face foreclosure if she doesn’t take immediate action:

The decision had slid into place like a deadbolt, with a sharp click, locking her in.  Just like when she was seventeen and standing in a grimy hallway with a red eviction notice in her hand.  I don’t care who I have to fuck, I’m not gonna end up out on the street.

Back then it had been her sister Cristina that she’d been determined to protect.  Now it was all the girls who came to the clinic, even the girls on her team.  In particular, she thought of Dulce:  wide eyes, bruises and silver platform boots.  Marisol would make sure that the clinic would always be there for girls like Dulce.  She didn’t care if she had to fuck an arrogant billionaire.

I hadn’t seen The Client List  when I started my novel back in 2008, but I identify with both of these female protagonists’ willingness to do whatever is necessary to protect those they love.

There’s also a similarity between the two stories in the communities of sex workers they depict.  Both reflect a range of other interests that they support via sex work.  The women of The Client List include an aspiring novelist, a dancer in musical theater, a tattoo artist, and a teenager with a strict Pentecostal family who ran away to try out for American Idol.  In my novel, the secondary protagonist is getting her degree from Columbia University in Public Health.  She’s prepared to take over the running of the clinic when she graduates and is working her way through school as an escort.

Similarly, both stories provide a range of attitudes toward sex work.  On one end are those who do it only out of economic desperation and feel a sense of disgust, and on the other end are those who feel like one sex worker in The Client List says:  “I love sex. I’m gettin paid to do somethin I love.”  In The Client List, what they all agree on is that sex work “beats the hell out of waitressing.”

There’s a similar moment in my novel, when the secondary protagonist gets a phone call:

“It’s the public health department,” Tyesha said laughing.  “I put a resume on file with them when I was job hunting last year.”

“Oh hell no,” Kim said.

“Dear public health department,” Tyesha fake typed on her phone.  “Please kiss my black ass.  I am now gainfully employed as an escort fucking one well-behaved client a week, and making more money than you offer at any of the sorry-ass jobs I applied for.”

Kim laughed.  “You should sign it ‘Miss Tyesha, one of the smartest bitches on the block.’”

Kim and Tyesha high fived.

“Ladies—” Marisol began.  “Remember, you are not bitches,” she admonished Kim.  “You are hoes.”

The four women laughed.

I added this part, this celebratory attitude toward sex work at the suggestion of a sex worker activist who has been consulting with me on the book.  She explained that contemporary sex worker culture includes the self-congratulation of having figured out how to have a level of economic freedom in today’s society.

So, up until this point, The Client List, like my novel, has painted an empathic portrait of a woman who does sex work.  However, after this, the perspectives of the stories begin to diverge.  In my novel, the protagonist and her team pursue a daring heist to save the clinic.  While I won’t spoil the ending, I will say this:  there are some consequences to her choices of robbery and sex work, but they have more to do with the organization of society and attitudes toward sex workers.  These are obstacles that will not hinder my protagonist from triumph.  In The Client List, however, the story’s plot moves into cliché and the perspective moves into a moralistic tone of judgment and punishment.

Sam Horton gets addicted to the fast money, starts to do cocaine, and gets caught in a police sting.  Later, Sam says that she also got hooked on the lavish gifts of jewelry from her clients, and the constant male attention.  At the character level, however, these motives ring hollow, as do her reasons for doing cocaine, which don’t even make logical sense.  She gets arrested and divulges client information in exchange for minimal jail time.  She does 30 days.  In the process, her husband leaves her and takes the kids.

The lesson for the fallen woman is driven home by the best friend who had warned her to stop: “I knew it would end like this…at first you did it to save your family; I get that.  But then it was for you.  You threw your whole life away for what’s on your ears and around your neck.”

The Client List is “…a dramatization inspired by a true story…characters and events [have been] fictionalized.”  I would be very curious to see what the real story had been.  By making Sam into a gold-digger, they paint the husband as humiliated victim, and the sex worker as penitent sinner.  But I should have known that the film’s underlying conservative Christian values would prevail when Sam kept talking to the angel on her dashboard on the way to and from work.

There are, however, a few touching moments that feel true to the realities of sex work.  When Sam is with her first client, her daughter calls, and Sam takes the call.  The client gets upset because seeing Sam as a mother, a human being beyond her role with him, sort of kills “the feeling” he was trying to get.  Later, Sam says she’s running behind because “the last guy was in real estate, and he wouldn’t stop crying.”  Finally, after Sam is caught, she experiences another occupational hazard of sexwork, TMI: “ever since this happened [being outed as a sex worker], people think they can tell me anything. Checkout girl at the Save-A-Lot says she doesn’t like to do it doggie style.”  These moments reflect a feminist perspective on sex work, key aspects of sex industry work where women who provide sexual services for men are expected to be exclusively sexualized, to play key emotional roles, and are expected to be sexually available to everyone in every way at all times.

These moments, however, are fleeting.  And because it is a Lifetime movie, the latter part of the film moves into what I will call “faux feminist” revelations.  The first is when the angry townswomen caravan from church on Sunday morning to show up at her door like an angry mob.  They hear her tearful confession. Sam says:

My whole life I just always depended on my looks, and I thought this was just gonna be another one of those times. I really thought I was doing the best thing for my family. But in the end the very thing I was trying to save I lost…and I’m just real sorry…for the pain that I caused you.

But instead of vengeance or penitence, it turns out they want information:

“Why do they come to you?” the women ask. “What do you do that we don’t?” and “How can we get them to think about us the way they think about you?”  Sam answers, “You all want tips?”

They agree, and she brings out a banana and two apples to give them sex techniques.

This provides the girl power moment where the women cooperate, but it is also steeped in misinformation.  The allure of sex workers for married men is not all about skills and techniques, it’s also about power, compartmentalization, and fantasy.  The sex worker is playing the role that a man pays her to play.  She can keep it up throughout the entirety of their interaction, because it is limited and is a transaction.  Whatever happens in the bedroom, a man knows that his wife has a full picture of his weaknesses, his failures, his funky smell in the bathroom.  Nowadays, his wife also has a right to expect their sex life to include satisfaction of her needs and desires.  There’s nothing Sam could teach many wives with that banana that would address those reasons that men pursue commercial sexual services.

The Client List poster
The Client List poster

 

The second faux feminist moment happens when her mother gives her an apology for encouraging her too much to focus on her looks and not sufficiently praising her intellect and character qualities.

This is faux feminism, because it blames individual women for buying into sexism, as opposed to blaming the institutions of sexism.  It implies that sexism is something passed down from mothers to daughters, as opposed to understanding women as passing on the internalized sexism they’ve learned from the society, including the best strategies for survival and advantages, which often involve collusion with the institutions of sexism.  In The Client List, there’s never any accountability placed either on institutions, or on individual men.  In particular, her husband is never held accountable for choosing to get drunk at the toughest point in the family’s biggest financial crisis.  He chose to get blasted after having spent the day standing around trying to get hired as a day laborer.  He felt humiliated by his drop in status from football star.  Although he apologizes later, his actions are never factored in to her decision.  At the time, they were very clear:  her family was facing ruin.  This was the only job available.  Her husband had put himself out of commission, and she made an executive decision.  She stepped in as breadwinner and took care of her family.

In my novel, the protagonist also faces the challenge of losing a relationship because her partner can’t accept her history of sex work.  Of course, they are not the same–my character was not married and doing sex work in secret–but the core dynamics are the same.  My character justifies her actions, and turns the tables on the love interest for questioning her choices:

“I didn’t even hear it from you. [my character’s love interest complains] Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I would have told you eventually,” she said.  “I just wanted to get to know you a little better before I sprang my fucking prostitution past on you.  I thought you would run, and you did….I did what I had to do, then and now…you left me hanging for weeks trying to decide if you could fucking handle the fact that I was a hooker ten years ago,” she said.  “And it’s not like it was my first goddamn choice of a job.”

In The Client List, however, at no point does Samantha tell her husband off.  Instead, she’s tearful, fallen, and apologetic throughout the latter part of the film.

By conveniently (and unrealistically) making Sam money grubbing and a cliche cocaine addict who’s cold and mean to her family, the film creates a justification for her blame and downfall.  The Client List sidesteps the much more complex and realistic question:  what happens when a woman makes a justifiable decision to take charge of her family’s financial future?  How would a husband react if he knew he dropped the ball and his wife turned to sex work as the only option to save them from homelessness?  Let’s say Samantha did the more realistic thing based on her character, and got out of sex work as soon as the family was on their feet. I would have found the story much more satisfying (and believable) if she had stopped sex work after the family got their finances together, but was prosecuted in the sting because there was evidence that she had worked there in the past.  But the story would lose the vital moralistic tone if the best friend had to say, “You did it to save your family; I get that.  But you’ve moved on and are working at a sports clinic now.  Why are these assholes ruining your life?”   Similarly, when the husband got mad, she could really tell him off:  “We had one dollar left, and two weeks to get our house out of foreclosure.  I had a woman promising me money if I just gave a few hand jobs, and when I went to discuss it with you, you were passed out drunk.  So yes, you missed a crucial moment of decisionmaking.  And as the only adult left standing, I made a choice.  I did what I had to do, and I used what I had at my disposal.”  Turning Sam into a cliche is a cop out.

Finally, the film has a predictable Lifetime movie ending.  After Sam suffers her punishment—shame, losing her family, and jail—she straightens up.  She starts going to night school.  She and the sex worker who “loves sex” both become waitresses, settling for $5 tips where they used to get $1,000 tips.  But Sam clearly implies that it’s worth it, now that she has her dignity back, thus, undoing the “beats the hell out of waitressing” moment of camaraderie.  Now that her bond with the sex workers is broken, she is sufficiently humbled that her man can finally “look at her” again.  The film ends at her kid’s birthday party with the beginning of a reconciliation with her husband and children.

When I reflect on the recent twitter conversation #notyourrescueproject, I think of The Client List as a seriously flawed baby step forward in the portrayal of sex workers in the media:  the sex worker is the main character, she is portrayed as making a decision to do sex work in a situation of economic constraint, not abject victimhood.  But I can only call it a baby step forward from a perspective of harm reduction.  This type of portrayal is less harmful than portrayals that show sex workers as less than human, without agency, or deserving targets of violence.  If you’re looking for a film that presents a feminist perspective on sex work, you might have to “just say no” to The Client List.

 

Aya de Leon is a Black/Latina writer/performer whose work has received acclaim in the Village Voice, Washington Post, American Theatre Magazine, and has been featured on Def Poetry and in Essence Magazine.  Aya has been a Cave Canem poetry fellow, and a slam poetry champion.  She is currently working on a sex worker heist novel.  She is the Director of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program, teaching poetry, spoken word, and hip hop at UC Berkeley.  She’s on Twitter @AyadeLeon and blogs at AyadeLeon.wordpress.com.

Sex Workers Telling Our Stories: From DIY Web Shorts to Feature Documentaries

Whether we make online videos that directly respond to terrible portrayals of us in the media, videos with the purpose of educating and doing advocacy, or produce feature films, sex workers who make media are constantly pressed up against all of our stereotypes. Over the last decade, I have dealt with documentary media about sex work as an audience member, a subject, and a producer. Whether we’re portrayed as villains or victims, pretty women or desperate girls, sex workers are a popular focus of documentary projects. But the only way to reach beyond simplistic narratives is for sex workers to be involved in the production of these projects.

Anna Saini from The Red Umbrella Diaries
Anna Saini from The Red Umbrella Diaries

 

This guest post by Audacia Ray appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

“I took you into my house and allowed you to shoot and you have laughed at us,” Anita’s subtitle reads as she looks directly into the camera in a 2010 Youtube video  produced by Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP, the Prostitutes’ Collective Against Injustice). VAMP’s video garnered a little shy of 19,000 views against the nearly two million views of Prostitutes of God, a VICE documentary that inaccurately depicted sex workers in Sangli, India and reported one sex worker as being HIV positive when she was not. VAMP’s video response to the VICE documentary was swift, fierce, and supported by sex worker and human rights activists. VICE edited out the clip falsely identifying a woman as HIV positive, but otherwise did not respond.

Whether we make online videos that directly respond to terrible portrayals of us in the media, videos with the purpose of educating and doing advocacy, or produce feature films, sex workers who make media are constantly pressed up against all of our stereotypes. Over the last decade, I have dealt with documentary media about sex work as an audience member, a subject, and a producer. Whether we’re portrayed as villains or victims, pretty women or desperate girls, sex workers are a popular focus of documentary projects. But the only way to reach beyond simplistic narratives is for sex workers to be involved in the production of these projects.

In 2009, I led my first media spokesperson training for sex workers in New York. At that training, I shot a one-minute PSA video (and I added more footage in 2011) called “I Am A Sex Worker.” In the video, the participating sex workers say one mundane fact about themselves, followed with “and I’m a sex worker.” The purpose of the video was to speak to a general audience and humanize sex workers as people who are multifaceted. I have to admit that it is not a technically “good” video. It’s all people talking directly to the camera in front of an uninspiring background, and the lighting and sound leave a lot to be desired. This lack of technical filmmaking finesse is not uncommon in sex worker-made media. Figuring out how to make the videos ourselves is resourceful; it is preferable to make a video with content completely controlled by sex workers ourselves, instead of handing the power over to a filmmaker we might not trust. Furthermore, there’s something compelling and awesome about sex workers telling even a sliver of their own stories while making eye contact with the camera.

Some sex-worker-created advocacy-driven online videos have a much narrower audience than mine though. The subtitle of the 2010 video conceived, developed, and produced by Lusty Day and Beef Jerky, “Every Ho I Know Says So”  spells it out: “advice for partners, lovers, dates, and sweethearts of sex workers.” In this nine-minute video, shot mostly on handheld iPhone video and combining clips shot by many different people, 21 sex workers address the viewer as “you” and give advice about how best to treat a sex worker in a dating situation. The video is offered up as a resource for sex workers to show to their romantic partners and potential partners and for partners to find on their own.

Both of these videos feature the identifiable faces of sex workers, with a couple of exceptions where people’s identifying characteristics are concealed. But exposure can be risky for many sex workers. Whether a sex worker is doing legal or illegal work, exposure can mean loss of income (especially if the sex worker has another job or tries to transition into work outside the industry), loss of child custody or housing, or threats to their well-being from the local community. Showing people’s faces, of course, is an important part of establishing humanity and depth of character in any film project. But some sex workers have been successful in creating videos that don’t reveal their identities while revealing intimate details about their work and motivations.

Live Nude Girls Unite! poster
Live Nude Girls Unite! poster

 

The Amsterdam-based organization Voices of Women Media (VOW) works with marginalized women to develop media skills so that they can tell their own stories. In a video documentary collaboration with two women who are sex workers in Amsterdam, VOW supported a woman named Chantal as well as an anonymous woman to script, produce, and shoot documentary shorts based on their lives. The resulting pair of 2010 videos, “Drowning” and “Los Caminos,” are portraits of women that are intimate, showing the interior of their work spaces behind the famed Amsterdam red light district windows, but also protect the identities of the women. As more stylistic elements are introduced, like b roll, staging, music, and with them, more complex editing, more skills are needed to create films like these. Collaborations like the Voices of Women Media project can work well if the stories and skill development of sex workers are centered, and if creative control remains with the sex workers and isn’t handed over to someone who will reshape the story for what they perceive as a better narrative. Authenticity is important, though it certainly takes longer to do a project this way. Authenticity, by the way, is not what happens when two young filmmakers decide to “pose as strippers” for two weeks (aka briefly become strippers while also looking down on actual women who strip for a living) and make videos about it, as an upcoming series on VICE touts.

It’s a big leap from DIY web videos to feature documentaries in terms of skill and of course fundraising; there have not been too many feature films about sex workers told from our perspective. The first one I saw was Live Nude Girls Unite, a documentary released in 2000 about the unionization process of the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco. There is a lot of hand-held camera work in the film as Julia Query, the producer, co-director, and a character in the film, takes the viewer through the club. In the film, we meet the dancers, attend their meetings, and even get to sit in on Julia’s coming-out to her mother. The dancers create a union, and a historical moment in sex worker labor organizing is documented.

More recently the 2013 feature film American Courtesans, produced by Kristen DiAngelo, an escort who also serves as the interviewer in the film, has played the festival circuit and won critical acclaim. The film features 11 cisgender women from around the United States who Kristen found through her personal networks. There isn’t a narrative structure; instead the film is a series of spotlight shoots of the women, who do sit-down interviews with Kristen and tell their life stories. The film strives to create empathy for the experiences of escorts as both workers and people. Though it doesn’t gloss over the challenges the women have faced in their lives–there are tears on camera more than once in the film–ultimately the filmmakers’ intent is to portray escorting as a legitimate and positive career choice for the women in the film.

After many years of working to produce media with sex workers and create spaces for sex workers to individual stories about our experiences, in the past year I’ve set out to produce my own feature-length documentary, The Red Umbrella Diaries. The film will tell the story of seven LGBTQ sex workers (myself included) as we prepare to tell our stories on stage at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in NYC. I’ve learned that my previous experience shooting web shorts as well as directing and producing a feature-length porn film, The Bi Apple (which won a Feminist Porn Award in 2007), has not really prepared me for this process. I’m grateful that I have been able to step aside and not be the filmmaker–instead I’m leaving that to the professionals, an Emmy-award winning crew–but I’d be lying if I said that its been easy. I have said no to many filmmakers who approached me over the years because I don’t trust just anyone to tell my story, and now I’m not signing away my right to review the final product – I’m doing the opposite actually. As an adult model and in other media situations, I have signed those releases, and I know how it feels to see myself represented in a way I dislike and not being able to do much about it.

Now I’m working with a crew I trust, guys who attended the storytelling events I produce for almost two years before showing up with a camera. We are currently working on our rough cut of the film. I’ve learned that having creative control over the final product still means that I need to trust the filmmakers I’m collaborating with. For me, there is definitely such a thing as being too close to the subject matter. I forget that there are elements of the lingo around my former profession that need to be defined, and that if this film is going to be accessible to a general audience, we do have to take the time to spell out things that I think are basic. But I know, and the filmmakers agree, that sex workers are experts on our own experiences, so there won’t be any professors or other experts explaining things on camera. Just us. I feel certain that we’re contributing something positive to documentary film, and I’m excited to prove that a collaboration where the “subjects” of a film have the final say over the content can be a rich and interesting project with complex storytelling.

 

Audacia Ray is a former sex worker who is the founder and executive director of the Red Umbrella Project, a small organization based in Brooklyn. She is the editor of the literary journal Prose & Lore: Memoir Stories About Sex Work and the executive producer of The Red Umbrella Diaries, a feature documentary with a targeted premiere of spring 2015. http://redumbrellaproject.org, @audaciaray on Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram.

‘True Romance’ or How Alabama Whitman Started the Fall of Damsels in Distress

On its surface, ‘True Romance’ comes off as yet another story about a guy who saves a girl from a horrible existence as a sex worker and he protects her forever and they live happily together forever and ever, the end. But, if you’ve ever seen it, you know that this is not the case. Alabama Whitman is a hero in her own right. She’s never apologetic about her sex life or her choices; they are what they are and she’s OK with it.

Proving that love is a strength, not a weakness
Proving that love is a strength, not a weakness

 

This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

The year was 1993. For the most part the 90s were starting out to be a good year for non-traditional female characters in film. Having sat through Pretty Woman on video at a sleepover once, I found myself not impressed. I got that Julia Roberts’s character was a sex worker, but I didn’t get the whole appeal of a character whose sole purpose was to be a damsel in distress. I was always more of a fan of stories where a woman could handle herself and it was cool if a guy came along to help but, for the most part, she had it covered. True Romance was one of those films and the first time I saw it, I loved it so much that I watched it in the theater three times that day, only breaking for meals and bathroom breaks.

On its surface, True Romance comes off as yet another story about a guy who saves a girl from a horrible existence as a sex worker and he protects her forever and they live happily together forever and ever, the end. But, if you’ve ever seen it, you know that this is not the case. Alabama Whitman is a hero in her own right. She’s never apologetic about her sex life or her choices; they are what they are and she’s OK with it. In fact, had she not met and fallen in love with Clarence, her short career as a sex worker might have continued. After their met, via set-up, and fall in love, it was Clarence’s idea to save her. Alabama was content to just stay with him, or run away, and continue living her life as she wished. Clarence, on the other hand, feeling emasculated by the idea that her pimp Drexl still existed and had somehow sullied his wife’s virtue, goes on the offensive and decides to show how manly he is by being a valiant knight, retrieving her belongings and saving her from her past. He reads her logical concern for his safety as yet another challenge of his manhood and sets off to right the wrong.

Alabama the survivor
Alabama the survivor

While Clarence goes off to play night in shining armor, which in this film is code for getting his tail kicked by Drexl and his body guard, Alabama sits at their apartment watching TV. She doesn’t actually think that Clarence would be stupid enough to actually go and confront Drexl. But he does, and after a stroke of luck with a misfired gun, Clarence returns to present his lady love with news of her former pimp’s demise and her things. Alabama finds this all super romantic because he fought for her. But not in the Pretty Woman, or traditional damsel in distress film, way where she falls into his arms and thanks him for taking her away to a better life because she never could have done it in her own kind of way. She thanks him because it was a sweet gesture and she really didn’t expect him to do it, or survive if he had, and she was happy that he cared enough to try. Alabama, being the smart, capable, woman that she was, would have been totally OK with leaving all of her stuff at Drexl’s and continuing her life with Clarence, never looking back. It wasn’t the “rescue” that made it romantic for her, it was the caring. Granted, Clarence’s motives were equal parts love and a male sense of ownership, but there was still something endearing about it.

There was also something endearing about the fact that you knew that this movie was about to go all kinds of crazy and with Alabama being the only female in a film full of men, you knew in that moment that she was going to be OK and would totally be able to handle herself. From the very beginning nothing about Alabama’s character said damsel in distress. Even when she was crying about being in love on the roof, that came off as genuine emotion and guilt for starting out on a lie. She was a real person and she was about to go through some real things and you felt for her. You rooted for her and above all else you wanted her to win.

Alabama and Clarence meet
Alabama and Clarence meet

The rest of the film follows Clarence and Alabama on a cross country trek to LA to unload the drugs that they discovered in Alabama’s suitcase. Clarence has no idea what he’s doing and there is something wonderful about watching Alabama stand by her man while slowly guiding him into making decisions that are better than the ones that he comes up with on his own. He listens to her suggestions and leans on her, just as much as she leans on him. They act like pure equals. Despite Alabama’s past he never treats her like anything other than a human being. He also doesn’t allow anyone else to. There is something nice about the way the film doesn’t paint broad stroke generalizations of women who choose to be in the sex industry. Her job choice wasn’t a scarlet letter that followed her. Outside of Clarence’s initial must-save-my-woman reaction at the beginning that spawned his initial jump to action, the fact that she used to be a sex worker wasn’t really brought up. She didn’t get the usual movie treatment of women who didn’t color in the lines, or who enjoyed sex, or who needed redemption. She existed and she was OK. She wasn’t forced to feel ashamed or bad about her choices. There wasn’t the typical punishment for her “actions” of being a sexual being, or getting paid for it. She was allowed as a character to grow outside of that mold.

Alabama defiant and strong in the face of fear
Alabama defiant and strong in the face of fear

Throughout the film, Alabama proves herself stronger, and often smarter, than most of the males on screen. This strength and her smarts, combined with her survival instincts, drive the film. Watching her fight her way out of her hotel room, taking down James Gandolfini’s Virgil in pure gladiator style, was beautiful. She showed no fear, no hesitation, just power. And not the brute force, masculine power that Virgil displayed as he tossed her about but mental power. She realized that physically she was outmatched and used her brain. She was able to overpower him and eventually defeat him using her mental advantage. She didn’t wait it out for Clarence or another man to show up, which I’m sure most of the audience was expecting to happen after the brutal beating she received; she defeated him on her own. To this day, that scene is one of my favorite fight scenes in a film. Half of the audience expecting Clarence to barge in at the last moment, the other half hoping she would finish him off on her own and no one being disappointed with the outcome. That scene cemented Alabama Whitman as a hero, not just another pretty face in an iconic film, or a damsel in distress. After delivering that death blow she proved what anyone watching the film had known all along: she was a force to be reckoned with.

Alabama and Clarence get married
Alabama and Clarence get married

When Clarence finally does return to whisk her away to the drug deal so that they can put this gruesome past behind them and start like anew together in Mexico; she’s battered and bruised, but still OK. She sits there during the doomed drug deal, wearing her bruises like a badge of honor and still managing to show just enough feminine charm to keep things moving along while simultaneous giving off a “don’t mess with me” vibe. It was brilliant and beautiful. She retained her wits and strength throughout the downfall of the deal when everything crumbled around her and Clarence emerges from his chat with Elvis and gets shot in the eye amidst a massive shoot out. Alabama then saves the day again as she not only grabs the money but manages to drag an equally bloody and bruised Clarence out of the hotel room, through the lobby and on to safety.

In the on-screen version, Alabama and Clarence escape together and are seen frolicking on a beach in Mexico with their son. Clarence is missing an eye from the shoot out and you can see a happily ever after in their future. You’re very happy that they made it as a couple, but you’re even happier that Alabama got the life she wanted and you can’t help but cheer. Owning the special edition version of the DVD, I have seen the ending that Quentin Tarantino wrote. Tony Scott famously shot it and didn’t use it because he didn’t want to split up the couple; he wanted them to both win. In the Tarantino ending, Alabama drives off on her own with the money and heads on to her new life. Clarence is dead and she’s upset by his stupidity in not listening to her in the first place. It was a cold ending, but you are still happy knowing that she made it, she’s OK, and she will continue to be OK because she’s proven herself nothing close to a damsel in distress. She’s strong, smart, and capable. Most people who have seen both endings have their favorite. I will go on record and say that either way is fine with me because Alabama is a character that not only resonated with me but has also stuck with me since I first saw the film. She showed that even in a “guy” film, filled with testosterone, violence, and blood that the only woman on screen doesn’t have to be scenery, a distraction, a hindrance or some”thing” that needs protecting. She can hold her own with the guys and be a true equal in the story and on screen. We no longer had to be seen as victims or damsels in distress; we could be heroes too.

Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a New York-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions. Twitter: @socialslumber13.

‘Scarlet Road’: Sex Work and Disability

Mark says he wants a girlfriend and that although he understands Rachel is a sex worker, he likes that Rachel makes him feel as though he has a girlfriend. That’s an important distinction that the trailer conveniently cut out. People with disabilities are not children who form childish emotional attachments from fantasies. We understand reality, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to escape it from time to time like everyone else.

Scarlet Road promotional poster.
Scarlet Road promotional poster.

Written by Erin Tatum.

I was originally hesitant to give Scarlet Road a chance. As a general rule, I hate documentaries about sex and disability. Most of them are incredibly patronizing and spoonfeed the presumably able viewer flowery messages about compassion for the human experience that do little to actually help the audience understand disabled sexuality or the problematic consequences of assuming universal asexuality for people with disabilities. Plus, the trailer really overdoes it with the piano music, which is never a good sign.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpC0tYp_Qg”]

That said, this was the first documentary on the subject that I genuinely enjoyed. At first, I was a little put off that Scarlet Road was subtitled “A Sex Worker’s Journey” because I felt that it was trying to pull focus away from the disability aspect of the film and emphasize the importance of able subjecthood. I was soon able to work past that when I realized that the film was tackling much more than disability alone. Director Catherine Scott chronicles the daily life of Rachel Wotton, an Australian sex worker who frequently works for the disabled, as she attempts to break down stigmas around sex work and disability. Rachel’s situation is especially unique because she lives in New South Wales, where sex work is decriminalized, and so she is able to advertise herself and others as any other business would.

Rachel could not have been a better spokesperson. She is fun, relaxed, and articulate. Rather than seizing the podium to “educate” the audience about the mechanics of sex with the disabled, she simply advocates for everyone’s right to sexual expression in a manner that’s casual and friendly, rather than appealing to sympathy and shaming able people for their social superiority complex. Rachel is the sort of person that you could imagine yourself sitting down having coffee with and when you’re dealing with allegedly taboo subjects, that sort of familiarity is vital. It’s easy to see why she excels in her profession. I never doubted that any of her passion wasn’t 100 percent genuine.

John enjoys a session with Rachel.
John enjoys a session with Rachel.

All of Rachel’s clients who were interviewed were disabled men. Some of them presented relatively familiar disability narratives. The first client, John, a man with multiple sclerosis, talked about nearly being driven to suicide by the degeneration resulting from his disorder. He says that working with Rachel “makes him feel like a real man again.” It’s also implied that his sessions with Rachel have even restored some of his functions or created some sort of new pathway for sexual response. Basically, masculinity is once again inextricably tied to regular sexual expression, but I won’t gripe too much because it isn’t framed in a way that compels us to pity him.

Rachel and Mark walk hand-in-hand as they go to lunch.
Rachel and Mark walk hand-in-hand as they go to lunch.

There’s also another guy Mark who has cerebral palsy (like me, holla!). Mark looks to be in his 30s and just chills with his parents. His parents are awesome and the three of them seem to love hanging out together. After so many stories of disability being a draining burden on everyone you love, it’s really refreshing to see a family that doesn’t bat an eye at the logistical complications. Mark’s mom gives him an allowance to pay for his sessions with Rachel. Mark’s mom is a cool lady. Mark says he wants a girlfriend and that although he understands Rachel is a sex worker, he likes that Rachel makes him feel as though he has a girlfriend. That’s an important distinction that the trailer conveniently cut out. People with disabilities are not children who form childish emotional attachments from fantasies. We understand reality, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to escape it from time to time like everyone else. Mark and Rachel have lunch while Mark’s parents set up his bed, complete with flower petals and chocolate. Not only do they seem completely at ease, but they chuckle and chatter excitedly the whole time about how pleased they are for Mark. Can they adopt me? Mainly, this documentary convinced me that I need to move to Australia.

Displays of vaginal swabs taken from sex workers and non-sex workers.
Displays of vaginal swabs taken from sex workers and non-sex workers.

I was surprised with the amount insight we were given into the sex work industry and the prejudice it faces. I was pleased that the scrutiny was taken off of disability for a while. Rachel helps run and facilitate an organization called Touching Base, which aims to educate sex workers on a variety of topics, including how to best assist disabled clients. She goes to a conference on sexology in Belgium. Even there, many participants express uneasiness or confusion about sex work. Really? I know it’s unfair to expect everyone to be an expert, but you would think that sex work would be a pretty big field in sexology. Rachel remarks on a poster that displays images of a vaginal swab of a sex worker versus that of a “normal” woman. She points out that images like these perpetuate the myth of sex workers as “vectors of disease.” The film makes it clear that people with disabilities face a lot of unfair hurdles and social judgment, but moments like these remind us that sex workers encounter similar biases. Both groups are routinely dehumanized to create an imagined sexual hierarchy of authenticity.

Rachel relaxes in bed with her boyfriend.
Rachel relaxes in bed with her boyfriend.

Nonetheless, Rachel thrives in her personal life. She has a boyfriend, Matt, who doesn’t seem to mind her choice in career at all. He’s just as laid-back as she is. When asked the obvious question of whether or not he gets jealous, Matt flatly shrugs it off. Interestingly, when asked about Rachel’s disabled clients, he says that he understands why it needs to happen because they don’t have opportunities. I held my breath at this point because it looked like he was teetering on emasculating the disabled men by insinuating that it wasn’t “real sex” to shore up his own masculinity, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t appear to perceive any of her clients, able-bodied or otherwise, as a threat to him or his relationship. He knows Rachel’s work is her work and understands the sexual economy in relation to the disabled as evening out (one aspect of) social inequality. You go, Matt. I just want to give everyone in the film high-fives.

Rachel on her graduation day.
Rachel on her graduation day.

Adding yet another element, Rachael graduates from university with a bachelor’s, having done her research in sex work. She wishes to pursue her PhD. I think that the unexpected fusion of these two areas reveals something very important about our cultural biases against sex workers and why we view them as unworthy of social respect. On one hand, academia is revered as taking quite a lot of skill to master. Supposedly, you have to be smart to earn a bachelor’s or PhD, and if you’re intelligent you must be someone worth talking to! On the other hand, sex workers are harshly stereotyped as often lazy criminals. Even when they’re marketed to be palatable to mainstream, like in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, escorts are portrayed decadent and opportunistic. In truth, there can be much more overlap between sex work and almost any other walk of life than most would care to admit.

Ultimately, the audience can recognize that there’s a great deal of intersectionality in the way that both sex workers and disabled people are policed and shamed about their sexual expression. Rachel reminds us that the two groups can work together to lessen collective stigma. Some of the issues that sex workers face directly impact the disabled community as well, such as the tendency to demonize or prosecute the client in areas where sex work is illegal. Rachel holds a banquet for Touching Base to celebrate the organization’s progress. Fun fact: she tells us that her current boyfriend, her three ex-boyfriends, her mother, plus several of her disabled clients and their families are there. No one even flinches. I love Australia. She talks at length about how much her disabled clients mean to her. After the preceding documentary, we can truly believe in her commitment to the cause.

The future of sex work and disability looks bright with Rachel Wotton at the helm.

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work

Inara shows all the benefits to the cultural changes of the last 500 years. She’s a Companion, a highly trained and respected sex worker who ministers mostly to dignitaries, businessmen, and other elites. She’s taken a ride on Serenity, the ship around which most of the show’s action centers, because she wants to see the universe. Because she is a Companion, she can write her own ticket – there will always be clients, so long as they stick to planets with some level of economic stability, and she can just rent a shuttle for as long as she wants. Plus, Inara herself is fun, witty, and classy as all get out. She’s the woman we all want to be, and she’s a sex worker. That’s progressive, right?
The problem here comes not from what the show is saying about sex work. It’s saying very complimentary things. The issue is that this show, this wonderful lovely show, is showing us something entirely different. Namely, that sex work is bad and nasty and wrong.

afdada
Inara (Morena Baccarin)

 

This guest post by Deborah Pless appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

The first time you watch Firefly, Joss Whedon’s sprawling but criminally short-lived space western, it’s easy to think that it gives you a rather progressive view of our future. While some things haven’t changed, like the need of governments to meddle in the affairs of their people, and the way that humans will always find a way to piss each other off, the universe it portrays is one pretty far advanced from our own. Most cultural conflicts have been whittled down by years of inter-marriage, the universe even speaks a pidgin of American English and Mandarin Chinese, and prostitution is not only legal, but respected.

All in all, a pretty good outlook, right? Especially for sex workers. Because in this world, they have rights, they have solid healthcare, they have independence, and they even have a pretty high level of social recognition. We know all of this because one of the main characters on the show, Inara (Morena Baccarin) is a Companion, the best of the best.

Inara shows all the benefits to the cultural changes of the last 500 years. She’s a Companion, a highly trained and respected sex worker who ministers mostly to dignitaries, businessmen, and other elites. She’s taken a ride on Serenity, the ship around which most of the show’s action centers, because she wants to see the universe. Because she is a Companion, she can write her own ticket – there will always be clients, so long as they stick to planets with some level of economic stability, and she can just rent a shuttle for as long as she wants. Plus, Inara herself is fun, witty, and classy as all get out. She’s the woman we all want to be, and she’s a sex worker. That’s progressive, right?

The Companion training room
The Companion training room

 

The problem here comes not from what the show is saying about sex work. It’s saying very complimentary things. The issue is that this show, this wonderful lovely show, is showing us something entirely different. Namely, that sex work is bad and nasty and wrong.

How? Well, let me tell you a thing.

The first thing you might pick up on in the show is that while Inara is not ashamed of her career, and she meets with no real prejudice about it from most of the characters, she does get a lot of blowback from one place in particular: Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). Mal hates that Inara is, as he puts it so gently, a “whore,” and he makes his feelings known on the matter a lot. And then some. And then a little more.

In and of itself, this would be a perfectly reasonably addition to the story. Granted, it would give lie to the idea that sex work is now perfectly respected in this universe, but one out of countless characters to decry what she does isn’t so terrible. There’s always someone who disagrees, right?

Well, Mal isn’t just the captain of the ship or the plucky hero, he’s also the audience avatar. His is the emotional arc in which we invest. And Mal is the one who has the biggest objection to Inara’s work. This implies that we too should have an objection to what Inara does.

Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin
Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin

 

It goes even further. In episode six, “Shindig,” Mal and Kaylee (Jewel Staite) must attend a party where Inara will also be with a client. Kaylee is happy to just go and admire the finery, have some strawberries, and maybe dance a little, but Mal takes it upon himself to find Inara while she is working and get into a fight with her. A fight that then escalates because Inara’s client, Atherton Wing (Edward Atterton), turns out to be kind of a jerk and calls her a whore on the dance floor. After he offers to buy her. Yeech.

Mal is enraged that someone else dared to call Inara what he calls her on a daily basis, and steps in, punching Atherton and accidentally challenging him to a duel for Inara’s honor. And then we spend the rest of the episode with Inara trying to save Mal from inevitably getting murdered, and Mal refusing to be rescued because a lady’s honor is at stake.

The problem, again, comes from the context. It wouldn’t be so bad if Mal were genuinely defending Inara, though it would undermine the idea that as a Companion Inara is a strong independent woman who can handle herself. That she needs to be rescued at all and can’t handle it or won’t handle it until Mal steps in is problematic in and of itself. No, the real issue here is how Mal steps in. He steps in by using violence to assert that while he can denigrate Inara’s work, no one else can. And that’s just kind of creepy.

Again, though, because this narrative is really Mal’s story, it supports his actions. He is shown as totally good and right and understandable to act like this, and Inara forgives him for being an ass. They share a nice drink and laugh over it all. Also, Inara reveals that she had the power to get back at Atherton the whole time, but didn’t want to use it, I guess.

Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin
Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin

 

And it doesn’t stop there. While Inara continues to be our “good” whore, the one who can get the crew out of any tight spot with her power of sex and sexiness (this happens at least two different episodes, and since there are only 13 total, that’s a lot), all other sex workers are considered inferior and, well, whores.

You have Saffron/Yolanda/Bridget (Christina Hendricks), a con artist with Companion training who marries men when they’re drunk and then robs them blind, or just pulls long cons on them in order to get their money. You have the whores that Jayne (Adam Baldwin) beds, who are denigrated by their proximity to Jayne – he’s a man-beast after all, so any woman who would sleep with him, especially for money, must be doubly unclean, right? And we have the Heart of Gold, from the episode of the same name, a little whorehouse in the middle of a desert planet run by a former Companion named Nandi (Melinda Clarke).

In the episode, “Heart of Gold,” the crew heads out to this brothel in the middle of nowhere at Inara’s behest. It seems that Nandi has been having some trouble with one of the local men, who is insistent that not only is one of the girls pregnant with his baby, that he is within his rights to take it from her. The crew comes in to save the day, keep the baby with its mother, and make sure that this man doesn’t get to ruin the Heart of Gold.

Chari from “Heart of Gold,” played by Kimberly McCullough
Chari from “Heart of Gold,” played by Kimberly McCullough

 

In the process, though, we learn a lot more about sex work in this universe, and it’s not pretty. While the show makes it very clear that these sex workers are the good guys, and the mean man trying to steal a baby is a bad guy (very subtle), it doesn’t do much to support this thesis. For starters, Nandi is shown to be “slumming it.” She stopped being a Companion in order to become an unlicensed whore because she wanted her freedom, but look where it’s gotten her. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no resources, a hostile environment, and the law breathing down her neck.

Her girls (and boys), while nice, are completely undeveloped as characters. We know nothing about the plight of the everyday sex worker in this universe. But we do know that we as an audience are supposed to be mildly disapproving. What Inara does is safe and respected, you see, whereas these people are doing it wrong. We know this because of the implicit messages the show sends: only Jayne takes Nandi up on the offer to use the brothel’s services, and while several other characters could, were they so inclined, they don’t. This is most notable with Kaylee, who is shown to be a character comfortable with her sexuality, happy to indulge, and at this point, deeply sexually frustrated. But she wouldn’t stoop to paying for it, I guess.

The only other character who does have sex in this episode is Mal himself, who beds Nandi, but only after they make it clear that this is about feelings and fun and definitely not about money. Because, again, only a monster like Jayne would stoop to paying for it.

The double standard here is both annoying and also indicative of the show’s real attitude. Because if the show really does want to claim to be permissive toward sex work, then it has to be permissive on both sides. Not only is it okay to be a sex worker, it’s okay to be a client of a sex worker.

Or neither. I’m not saying which way the show should go here, I’m saying that by stigmatizing the clients of sex workers, the show is stigmatizing the workers themselves.

Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin
Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin

 

Oh, and there’s the thing where all the “good” prostitutes have to die. As penance.

Now, off the top of my head, the only actual sex worker who dies during the show is Nandi, who is very tragically killed during the siege on her brothel. Of course she is revenged and it has a happy-ish ending where the girl gets to keep her baby and everything is right in the world. Only Nandi is still dead. And one can only surmise what the reason for that is. On the one hand, this is Joss Whedon and he does bathe in the tears of his viewers. But on the other, Nandi’s death is largely unnecessary as far as the plot goes, and it only serves to put a wedge between Mal and Inara, as well as to figuratively punish her for the choices she made in life.

As usual, this wouldn’t be noteworthy or even that offensive if it were a singular event. It isn’t. We (the fans) recently learned a little bit of trivia about the show that would have come out had the show gone on longer than half of a season. Namely, that Inara was terminally ill.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTxGOi9coWQ”]

So, now this means that of the sympathetic sex worker characters on the show, both of them were killed off or going to be killed off in suitably tragic and noble ways, but also in ways the figuratively punish them for their sins.

Like I said, the show has very mixed feelings about sex work.

Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin, and Captain Mal Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion
Inara Serra, played by Morena Baccarin, and Captain Mal Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion

 

I think what happened is this: while Firefly really does want to show us a world where sex work is accepted, or more accepted, and a lot of cultural barriers have broken down, the show is much more concerned with portraying a world of incredibly harsh class divisions. For example, our heroes are all working class or fallen upper class, and the main struggle in the series is that of our plucky underdogs fighting against the rich and powerful who seek to dominate them.

This isn’t a bad thing. It’s a huge part of what makes the show watchable. But it comes at a cost. You see, by making the narrative more about class, it creates a need to work a class narrative into all of its stories. A story about a brothel in the wilderness can’t just be a story about sex work, it has to be a story about class and sex work. By doing this, by setting up Inara as the high class sex worker and everyone else as lower class and therefore bad, the show stigmatizes sex work as a whole. After all, if the only difference between the good whore and the bad one is her paycheck, then there’s no difference at all.

Look. Whether you’re okay with it or not, Firefly is kind of lying here. It says it’s progressive and open-minded, but it really isn’t. Shows, and people, are defined by what they do much more than what they say. So while Firefly and Inara say they’re liberated, independent, and free-thinking, their actions say differently.

And I do not hold to that.

 

Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a youth advocate in Western Washington. You can follow her on twitter and tumblr just as long as you like feminist rants and an obsession with superheroes.

An Authentic Portrayal of a Transgender Sex Worker in ‘Wild Side’

Like much of Lifshitz’ previous work, ‘Wild Side’ explores sexuality and emotional intimacy. Thankfully, Stéphanie’s gender identity or Mikhail and Djamel’s bisexuality are not the sole focus, but rather appropriately important facets of their characters.

Wild_side
Foreign release poster.

 

Written by Andé Morgan.

Some topics to avoid at a holiday dinner (aside from the fact that Columbus was an awful, awful man or that Jesus probably wasn’t born on December 25): politics, religion, and, if several generations of feminists are sitting around your table, sex work. I can’t bridge that chasm here, but I can tell you that I support the recognition of the human rights of both sex workers and transgender people (big of me, I know). Consequently, I appreciate stories that portray sex workers and transgender people as real people.

Unfortunately, I wince reflexively whenever I hear about a transgender character in a new movie or TV show. The notable exception of Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black not withstanding, transfolk on screen are usually one-dimensional, and typically function to fill in a story or to be a catalyst for another (cis)character’s development. We’re familiar with the transgender character as a caricature: the “tranny” who is deceptive, immoral, dirty, ugly, and undesirable. These characters don’t develop. They’re either cheap punchlines, or they provide an opportunity for the main (cis)character to develop tolerance or sensitivity. Continue reading “An Authentic Portrayal of a Transgender Sex Worker in ‘Wild Side’”