Be Careful With Whom You Treat Like Shit

Most sex workers are at higher risk of physical and verbal violence, stigmatization, human rights abuse, and social and legal discrimination.

The legality of sex work often leaves people unprotected and even vulnerable to discrimination and abuse. People still face discrimination in countries and cities where sex work and prostitution are legal and regulated. Still, at least they have access to some of the same basic services as other taxpayers.

For example, Amsterdam is famous worldwide for its Red-Light District. Prostitution is legal and regulated there, which has made a difference in the quality of life for many sex workers. They get tested for STIs regularly, can safely promote their services, and can call the police if their client is breaking the law. However, even this protection is discriminatory.

Sex workers have to register with the government, which requires them to submit their real name and address to the Chamber of Commerce. Their protection comes at a cost that will very likely expose the sex worker to social discrimination. Besides that, registering is impossible for illegal immigrants, who represent a large portion of the city’s sex workers.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, the Dutch government gave self-employed workers emergency income support. The Prostitution Information Centre (PIC) has described this financial support as discriminatory towards sex workers because of the conditions the government attached to it. Only 13% of the sex workers that applied received income support. In the Netherlands, the main factors that define the labor position of sex workers and their access to corona income support are whether they are registered at the Chamber of Commerce self-employed, whether they work in the licensed sector, and their immigration status.

“Stigmatization of sex work permeates all facets of society, being understood as a mark of disgrace, a social discrediting, or a spoiled identity. Derogatory terms, such as “prostitutes,” “hookers,” and “whores” are often used to describe sex workers in the media, politics, and even research literature.”

-Paul Berthe (Social Connectedness Fellow 2018)^**

Companies like PayPal, Airbnb, and Visa/MasterCard are closing down small business accounts linked to sex work and denying sex workers their services.

“Please understand that we are not obliged to provide an explanation for the action taken against your account.”

That’s the email Arianna Travaglini allegedly received from Airbnb after they discovered she’s a professional dominatrix, even though she’s never used the apartment rentals for her services.

Gauge was famous in the industry for receiving anal sex while doing a handstand, but in 2005 she decided to retire. She saved enough money to go to school and got her certification as a surgical tech. She was at the top of her class and did double the required practice hours until someone recognized her.

“Then they started treating me like shit. They made me feel like I was contaminating everything.”

By the time she was supposed to graduate, nobody at the hospital would sign her hours. Then she tried criminal justice and makeup artist school and always lived in fear of being recognized. After eight difficult and scary years, she announced her comeback film with Brazzers. Now she has an OnlyFans.

In 2017, Nicole Gililland enrolled in Southwestern Oregon Community College. Before that, a decade before that, she was a sex worker and performed in adult films. But she wanted to make a new life for herself, so she started to study nursing. When teachers and staff became aware that she had been a sex worker, they began to grade her unfairly and even accused her of plagiarism. One professor, Melissa Sperry, even sent her the wrong assignment, failed her on the incorrect assignment, and then proceeded to penalize her for taking a make-up exam. Bitch.

Other students from her program went on record to say that they purposefully stayed away from Gililland because they were afraid of what would happen if people associated them with her. The head of the community college’s nursing program eventually expelled her because he was failing her classes. When Gililland asked a faculty member why they were doing this, the person answered: “it takes a classy woman to be a nurse, and unclassy women shouldn’t be nurses.”

Where I come from, classy women don’t disrespect, belittle, and intentionally offend other women, but to each their own. The “classy woman” who said that had to explain her choice of words to a court of law.

She sued the college^***, and the ruling was a historic victory for sex workers who can now claim sex discrimination on the basis that “gender stereotyping,” which happens when someone does not conform to certain stereotypes about gender, is unlawful sex discrimination.

After blatant discrimination from her community, a suicide attempt, issues concerning the custody of her children, and a very long and complicated lawsuit, a Portland-based sex worker advocacy group set up a GoFundMe. It raised enough money for her to move out of that little, retrograde town. She has since shifted paths and is now in pre-law. She wants to go to Yale.

In December 2021, judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai issued an opinion in favor of Gililland, and last week a jury of her peers awarded her roughly $1.7 million U.S. dollars.

“Gililland is far from the first sex worker to have their life derailed when seeking different career opportunities. In March 2012, a Houston Chronicle reporter was terminated because of her prior work as an exotic dancer; a month later, a California teacher was fired because she had formerly been a porn actor; in 2018, a New Jersey Sheriff’s officer lost her job because she was previously a dominatrix. Two sex worker’s rights organizations, Best Practices Policy Project and the New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance, are in the midst of conducting a needs assessment for New Jersey sex workers, and so far, they’ve found that over a quarter of sex workers in the state say they’ve been denied a job because of their involvement in the sex industry.”

-Glyn Peterson

These are just a few examples of cases that have made it to mainstream media, but this happens daily to thousands of people worldwide. Be kind and be careful with whom you treat like shit.

**   https://www.socialconnectedness.org/the-stigmatization-behind-sex-work/
*** https://www.zefflawfirm.com/insights/federal-court-holds-discrimination-against-sex-workers/