Sex as work: a story
Do you think doing sex is work (at least sometimes) whether you are a sex worker or not? Consider a story told amongst women in southern Poland, which I was lucky enough to hear from Agnieszka Pasieka at a conference on gender and religion:
A woman asks her husband to fix a leaking tap in the kitchen.
–Am I a plumber? he says.
The next day the man comes home and sees the tap has been fixed. Yes, his wife explains, a neighbour man said he would fix it if she sang him a song or made love to him.
-What song did you sing for him? asks the husband.
–Am I a singer? answers the wife.
This story neatly accomplishes several things:
* Makes fun of professional categories as the basis for identity
* Shows how sex can be traded in non-professional situations
* Adjusts the power in a small domestic contretemps
Take that, identity politics!
For those with a professional identity: Escort agency advertising in North West England
Thanks to Shelly Stoops and her camera.
Five Things You Need to Know about Sex Workers
by Leslie Ann Jeffrey and Gayle MacDonald at No More Potlucks
Sweating it out at a job you may hate for a pittance of a wage is crazy . . . A number of the street-based sex workers we spoke with had experienced that minimum wage world of service work and part-time, dead-end jobs and found sex work – with its often better income and flexibility of hours that so many of us hope for but often can’t find in our work – a preferable option. Others had worked at worked at middle-class jobs and still found sex work a better option . . .
I fix a lot of stuff around the house and, luckily for me, my wife can’t sing either.
This is very amusing and shows what all of us know all along that escort work should be legalised.
I love your blog!