A Faustian Bargain
Speaking Out Against The Media Pt1
A London Mistress gives the real ‘exposé’ – on how she was unwittingly turned into a ‘Sensational Shock Story!’
This is my account of how I made the personal decision to ‘come out’ to promote a more positive portrayal of sex work. I agreed to a magazine interview but was presented and manipulated into just the kind of negative image I was trying to challenge. This article has given me an opportunity of recourse. I would like to discuss some of my reality of working in the sex industry. Addressing some of the more relevant issues that unfortunately this article failed to even comprehend. I have also tried to analyse what happened, how exactly did the article they wrote end up being so different from the interview I had given them.
Personal Experience
I am a woman in my late twenties. I am a writer, photographer and filmmaker. I also work at a domination house in London with number of other women. Some of my writing and poetry was displayed at an erotic art exhibition. The exhibition had been organised to celebrate and promote more open attitudes to sex. On the opening night a journalist approached me. She worked for a well-known woman’s magazine aimed at the 20-30-age bracket and asked if I would agree to an interview. I have always hated all kinds of publicity, as I am a very private person. However, I feel that I should stand up and speak out for what I believe in. I feel strongly that sex work should be a legitimate service industry and that the current legal position of sex workers is unacceptable. This will never happen unless people’s perceptions of working women change. I therefore decided to let her interview me with the understanding that it would portray sex work in a positive light.
The Interview and the Subsequent Article
I gave a lot of my time and thoughts to the two-day interview. I also allowed them to talk to my partner, co-workers and clients. I talked candidly about many areas of my life: my work in domination; my writing; my preference for S/M sex and many of my beliefs regarding sexual freedom. At the conclusion of the interview the woman promised that I would be shown the article before it was published and I could change anything that I did not feel was accurate. Three weeks later I had heard nothing despite numerous telephone calls.
When I bought the magazine at first I could not find my interview within it. It was titled so offensively I didn’t associate the article with the interview I had given them. On the actual cover of the magazine were the words ‘The filthy job that’s made me rich!’ and the article inside was ambiguously labelled ‘Dirty Money’. Since I don’t work for a drain company I can only assume they were using the adjectives dirty/filthy to associate sex work with something soiled and unclean or perhaps in its lewd sense as sordid or immoral – not a very good start.
Written in a very disapproving tone, along with the references to something soiled the article was obsessively full of references to money. (Quotes in bold). The obviously wealthy clients, pay a fortune and we spend hundreds of pounds having outfits made. The article continued by fabricating a kind of high-class, hedonistic bimbo. She works for three days a week, drives a flash car and takes long holidays abroad. She hates what she does, but earns a fortune, consoling herself by thinking about what she will spend the money on afterwards. Every mention of the clients was particularly rude and insulting. They have perverted fantasies, are sweaty and have trademark paunches. Particularly hypocritical was the way these references were used to titillate the audience with this appealing playgirl life style yet ambiguously coupled with their sordid descriptions and self-righteous moralising.
The article actually ended with the writer answering the question she begins the article with ‘Is slapping fat men’s backsides really worth the money? Her answer is …As I fish out my bus money…I realise they never have to get the bus home…but if getting rich involves what I just saw I’d rather be broke any day’. I found this all rather unbelievable as she and her sub-editor ate in the most expensive restaurants around the City and arrived and departed in black taxicabs. She also confided in us her cocaine addiction which was financed by her wealthy parents and how one of her past boyfriends was a transvestite which she was really into.
So if we take a closer look within the subtext of the article, common stereotypical ideas about sex work pervade – all clients are unattractive, perverted individuals who have to pay to play out their strange fantasies. As sex workers we demean ourselves in this sordid trade-off of large financial rewards but of course at the cost of our moral souls.
I am still unsure why they bothered to interview me. They should have invented some fictional character since the article did not in any way resemble anything I had actually said. I cried my eyes out when I saw the piece. Reading those words really hurt. I felt tricked and abused by them. I had no recourse. What could I do? I felt so impotent. Worse still I felt that I had betrayed the trust of the clients that had been interviewed. I had not been paid for the interview, as I had only wanted to try and change attitudes. So worse of all I had actually made things worse. I had been manipulated into just the kind of negative image that I had been trying to change.
The Real Story
So here is some of my reality working within the sex industry. I currently work in a domination house in central London with three permanent women but many others for occasional scenes. The fact is that unless you use a domination house, our world is probably not one you would have heard of, being very discreet and underground. Most top-bracket, successful sex-workers go totally unnoticed since their success relies on discretion.
Our facility is in an exclusive block, is impeccably clean and extensively equipped. Most of the clients that come to see us are men but we also see women and couples. We try to give both men and women a safe, non-judgemental place to explore and enjoy their sexuality. None of us fits the media’s stereotypical image of an exploited, pimp-controlled sex-worker. We all work in the sex industry by choice and we all enjoy our work since we only do what we are happy doing – no one does anything which they are uncomfortable with.
Between the four of us there are: three graduates; a fully qualified nurse; a successful business woman and mother; a City analyst who earns far more at her desk job than she could with us; and an accomplished writer and artist/photographer.
Yes – sex work is one of the few industries where women can earn far in excess of their male cohorts and this fact alone can make it very empowering for women. It offers them flexible hours, excellent money in a safe and female friendly environment.
Although I have described where I work as domination House, we don’t just offer a ‘domination’ service. Scenes are as individual as the clients involved in them. We deal with a number of different ‘fetishes’ and provide many different kinds of ‘service’ – ranging from the erotic/sexual to emotional and supportive. We have long term relationships with many clients who we regard as personal friends.
I think it is very sad that at the end of the 1990’s we still view paying for sexual services & material etc. as something sordid and shameful. And our mental image of a ‘Client’ is still this media created stereotype of an unattractive, single, ‘dirty old man’ that is unable to find a partner. Submissives are still presented as part of this ‘dirty mac brigade’ but typified as working in some high-powered profession, needing some kind of reverse outlet to play out their bizarre fantasies. Actually our clients are very ‘normal’, average, attractive sort of guys. There isn’t a typical client. They are different people, different ages and from all walks of life. I can say that the majority are from the 25-50 age group and are employed with some kind of surplus income. One characteristic that our clients seem to share is that they are nearly always highly intelligent, polite, astute individuals with well defined imaginations.
I think one of the most salient points that the interview could have touched on was the fact that here was a group of women who are sexually dominant. There seems to be a rise in the number of women who are recognising that (at whatever level) being dominant in the bedroom can be very satisfying. It can be about getting the sex and pleasure you want from your partner. Female domination itself can be so empowering that many of the women drawn to work with me often have other careers and come along more interested in the work than the money. In fact we had strong, well-developed interests in sub/dom games before we started working. It seems to be a central factor drawing us into the work.
Sex work has helped me and other women explore and develop our sexuality. What we want from sex. What we enjoy. For too long women have been denied the right to their own sexuality. It is assumed that they have no need of any kind of sex industry. In my experience many women come into sex work for the same reasons as the clients. That is to find a space for themselves to explore and express their sexuality. We have always tried to encourage women to come along as clients although about 98% are still male. I believe the main reason so few women use the industry is because firstly, they do not know or think it has something to offer them. Secondly, they have less surplus income. Finally, but most importantly, from my experience many women come into sex work as workers rather than clients simply because it is the most accessible and acceptable route.
So What Exactly was the Problem? Why Did they Write Something so Offensive and Basically Fictional?
Well firstly, I think they had decided to write a story on sex work before they met me. I was slotted into their pre-conceived box. The story of a domination house has an inherent shock value to it. It was a story that they knew they could sensationalise to help sell their publication. So immediately I had become what they expected and wanted me to be. I wasn’t a real intelligent, articulate person with my own real-life story, I was just a convenient stereotype to be exploited to sell their magazine.
It could be, sadly, that really was how they saw me. But actually since that really isn’t me, if that is what they saw then I was just a projection of their own feelings that sex work is something ‘dirty’ and ‘seedy’. Interestingly, perhaps the reality was too frightening for them to see. This interview exposed many ideas that are very new, frightening and threatening to people. Here were a bunch of intelligent, independent, articulate, happy women who run their own business and don’t rely on men for their financial stability. They enjoy and explore sex. They know what they want sexually. They couldn’t bear to look at the reality around them; they had to retreat back into the safety of self-denial. It was too alarming for them to accept or even present the truth. Women are never allowed to enjoy sex, let alone enjoy working in the sex industry. Tragic then that a woman interviewed me, her sub-editor and the editor of the magazine were all women and that the magazine was read by a young female audience.
At first I was angry because I felt tricked, deceived and used. However, the more I tried to make sense of what happened, the more incensed I became about the opportunity that the magazine has lost. They are supposed to be writing articles for young women of the nineties. Yet they manufacture the same old boring rhetoric, filled with fictional stereotypes. That both underestimate and patronise their female audience. Why do they write such condescending rubbish for their female readers, what are they trying to protect them from? I think they are obviously completely out of touch with the changing attitudes of women.
So what exactly is the conclusion of this sad little tale. The article could have exposed some of the real facts about one person’s real experience of working within the sex industry and dispelled some of the myths. They were privileged to be invited into our work place. They had amazing material in front of them yet they chose to write an ill-informed piece of moral vigilantism, a crass sensational interview not based in truth but on their stereotypical views. I’m left with a feeling of impotency, that I have no power to make a difference. A mistrust of the media in general and a desire to sneak back under the umbrella of anonymity.
Some good has come from the whole incident though, the experience has forced me to re-consider how I can change attitudes, if at all? And to examine the media, scrutinising it’s methods, how powerful it is and particularly it’s treatment of fringe groups: sex-workers, swingers, S&M enthusiasts, body piercers, lesbians, gay men, transvestites/ sexuals, naturalist etc. Having written about my own experience I have decided to extend this article to include some of my conclusions about our relationship with the media. So now it’s time to put the media into the spotlight.
I shall continue ‘my expose’ of the media in part two of this article.
Note: This article was written by MSVB for Fetish Times Magazine in the late 1990s.
A Faustian Bargain – Putting The Media Into The Spotlight Pt2 Read Here
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