How Sex Work Exposed My White Privilege

In 2020, people throughout the US and beyond have taken to the streets to protest systemic racism and injustice—yet how many of us have considered the effect of racism on sex workers? In my six years working as a professional submissive and switch at a commercial dungeon, I’ve seen firsthand how racism and other prejudices affect the entire sex worker community. In fact, my personal experience as a white sex worker, witnessing and questioning how to respond to acts of racism against my coworkers, is now mirrored by the way many white Americans are examining their own problematic attitudes and assumptions about race. 

When I began working at a commercial dungeon in Los Angeles in 2013, the diversity of the dungeon community was one of the aspects I most appreciated. I worked with Black, Latinx, and Asian-American women, and ladies who’d grown up in countries including Ireland and Russia. Our community was also diverse in many other ways—we were different ages, came from different educational and economic backgrounds, and had different life trajectories, with some of us in college, others who were artists and still others pursuing successful business careers in addition to our dungeon lives. 

The magic of our dungeon environment was that, as sex workers, we all shared a secret many in the outside world would judge us quite harshly for—and that one commonality frequently overpowered the other elements that might have divided us. I felt an instant bond with my coworkers that only grew stronger over time, as we all got to know each other in the often long waits between sessions. In the dungeon, I found a place where women didn’t judge each other by skin color, any more than we judged each other for our histories or our achievements. 

Yet even as entering the dungeon allowed me to join an inclusive community of women, working in this environment also showed me, perhaps more than any other experience in my life, my own white privilege. It was common knowledge that women of color at the dungeon booked less sessions, especially when working as submissives. As my Black coworker Violet puts it, working as a submissive was “not as lucrative as I thought it would be” for two main reasons: One, the dungeon’s clientele consisted mainly of older white men who wanted to spank, tie up and tickle what they considered a sweet, innocent-looking girl. As Violet points out, these men were “trying to relive their youths, [which] did not typically include interacting with Black people in general, so they saw right past me and opted for the slim, pale-skinned, soft brown-haired girls-next-door.” Secondly, clients who were younger were still predominantly Caucasian and typically “felt a sense of white guilt, and were uncomfortable beating a Black woman.”

Similarly, Lulu, who was the only Mexican-American woman at the dungeon when she began working there, noticed “I wasn’t getting as many sessions as the other girls” and “came to the realization that clients favored white females.” Lulu decided to “get better instead of bitter” by “investing more in my fetish outfits” and attending workshops to “expand my experience as a player”—however, her efforts were not always as successful as she hoped.

Due to the exact issues Violet and Lulu describe, in my early days at the dungeon as a submissive, I was often in session making money while my African-American and Latinx coworkers sat in the waiting room downstairs—and the only reason I was working when they weren’t was the color of my skin. Violet describes the frustration of quitting her job to “dedicate my full-time hours to the dungeon,” while “only managing to score three to four sessions a MONTH”—and also having to “listen to my white coworkers complaining that they didn’t have a minute to rest between sessions.” Lulu similarly noted that while her hard work and skill “helped some,” white girls “who put in little to no effort in their craft continued to get session after session.”  

Clearly, as women of color, Violet and Lulu had very different experiences at the dungeon than I did—ones that impacted their relationships with coworkers in addition to clients. And yes, I was one of those women complaining on days I had back-to-back sessions, without considering how my words might affect my fellow dungeon workers. My blind spots kept me from realizing that for some women, the dungeon might not always be the same welcoming, inclusive place I experienced—and my behavior directly contributed to that disparity.

Photo by Deon Black via pexels

As a white woman at the dungeon, I also didn’t have to deal with being confronted by stereotypes related to my race, the way many of my coworkers did. Asian-American submissives booked many sessions—as long as they were willing to play the “Asian schoolgirl.” My coworker Aimi, a first-generation Asian-American, says “there was definitely stereotyping—the worst of which was probably some guy calling to ask if I could speak English. When the desk mistress confirmed that I could, he was disappointed because he wanted an Asian girl who couldn’t.”

African-American women were also asked to take part in sessions that engaged directly with race. For instance, Violet recalls that her “very first client request was a plantation slave/master roleplay.” Women at the dungeon were never required to take these sessions, but even in being asked to do so, they had to deal with preconceptions based on the color of their skin—and I, as a white woman, did not. I was able to do my job without having to think about my greater ethnic identity, an added burden in an occupation that is already emotionally draining.

However, even as a white woman, I found that I couldn’t escape the negative effects of racism at the dungeon, just as none of us can deny the fact that racism affects us all in the larger world. At the dungeon, we had a repeat client we not-so-affectionately nicknamed “Racist Joe,” who liked to session with women of color and took every opportunity to comment on and ask about their ethnicities. One day, Racist Joe booked a double session with me and Lulu. By this point Lulu was a talented dominatrix, and I was always happy to session with her—with Joe, not so much. The two of us had sessioned with Joe before, and we knew what to expect: he wanted Lulu to “teach” me how to dominate him, how to give him a spanking and so on, even though I had already been a switch for a while and I knew how to do my job.

Lulu and I were suffering together through the session, trying to avoid Joe’s sweaty body as much as possible and pretend we were excited about the prospect of “torturing” this out-of-shape old white man, when out of nowhere, despite the fact that neither of us had uttered a curse word, Joe looked straight at Lulu’s lips and said: “You know, I’ve always wanted to wash a Mexican girl’s mouth out with soap, because you all have such dirty mouths.”

Lulu turned and walked right out of the session room, and I didn’t blame her. My shock had overtaken my own emotional reaction, and I knew my responsibility for the moment was to keep Joe occupied for however long Lulu needed to collect herself. I don’t even remember what I did for those minutes she was gone. I was panicked, caught up in a conflict that felt like it was both mine and not mine at the same time. I was disgusted by Joe’s words, but at the same time, I had no idea what Lulu—the person the comment had been aimed at—was experiencing. I could do my best to empathize, but since I had never received a derogatory comment based solely on my race, I couldn’t truly understand.

Eventually, Lulu returned holding the bottle of liquid hand soap we kept in the bathroom down the hall. She showed it to Joe and said, “I’d like to wash your mouth out with this right now,” but because she was a professional—even in a situation where her client was being completely unprofessional—she put the soap down and we finished the session. 

As soon as Joe left and we were cleaning the room, I said, “I can’t believe he said that!” 

Lulu replied, “Yeah, I just…I had to get out of there for a minute.” I wasn’t sure what else to say—or if Lulu even wanted to discuss the matter any further—and for better or for worse, that was the extent of our conversation. When I interviewed Lulu for this article, she said, “I remember feeling so angry and insulted I walked out of the session.”

Although I couldn’t understand exactly what Lulu was feeling, I was angry too.

Shortly after that session, I decided not to session with “Racist Joe” again. There were plenty of other things I disliked about his sessions, in addition to the offensive comments. But somehow, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. I was writing a novel at the time, and without my consciously choosing to include him, “Racist Joe” became a part of my story. He morphed into an unsavory diner owner in the 1950s, who could assault his waitresses and spit out racial slurs with impunity. I spent hours imagining a scene where one of those waitresses—secretly a powerful dominatrix—corners Joe and nearly cuts his balls off until he promises to behave himself.

Clearly, even though the real-life Racist Joe’s comments weren’t aimed at me, they had a strong effect on my psyche. I’m still thinking about what Joe said—and about how I reacted, or didn’t, and what I could have done differently—more than two years after the incident took place. Maybe a part of me sensed this was about more than one isolated experience; now, a few years later, I’m seeing my own struggle reflected on a much broader level. White people who consider themselves on the side of equality are now acknowledging that they’ve contributed to the problem of systemic racism, simply by going along with the status quo. 

I still don’t know what exactly I might have done during this situation: Should I have voiced my disapproval of Racist Joe’s comments to his face, even though he was a client? Should I have offered more support to Lulu after the fact, or would doing so have only made her uncomfortable? But I do know that in the greater upheaval we’re all living through at the moment, white people can’t remain inactive, paralyzed by our worries. We can’t go on blaming the “Racist Joes,” the people whose behavior is blatantly problematic, without acknowledging the larger system of inequality that allows injustice both obvious and insidious to continue.

If the escalating problem of police brutality and the higher impact of COVID among people of color has made one thing clear, it’s this: our society won’t change unless people of all races take part in dismantling systems of oppression. We have to ask the uncomfortable questions. We have to think about how racism, prejudice and inequality affect every aspect of our society, even the ones—like sex work—we might consider unimportant or overlook. 

We have a long way to go, but one thing is clear: silence and inaction isn’t an option. Until we can acknowledge the impact of systemic racism in even the most marginalized areas of our society, we can’t truly take steps toward equality for all humans.

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SC Stephanie is a graduate of the Master of Professional Writing program at USC, and I have been published in the HuffPost, Entropy, and many other publications.

Shaming Sex Workers Makes You a Bad Feminist

Nope, just nope.

It’s really annoying that we have to keep saying this but nevertheless we will persist in screaming: shaming sex workers doesn’t make you a hero. It makes you a villain.

COVID 19 has disrupted national economies, thrown entire communities into turmoil, and has left our cities looking like wide-shots from I am Legend. Millions of people around the world have lost their jobs, while people employed in sectors of the economy that were previously ignored or taking for granted, such as grocery clerks, postal service workers, public transportation officers, and more are now finally being appreciated for their value to our societies as essential workers. The virus has highlighted the disparities between the people at the top, who are sheltering-in-place in country houses with swimming pools and an army of staff, and a struggling majority that now has to figure out how to pay rent or take care of children while trying to maintain jobs, if they're lucky enough to still have one. It has caused us to reexamine the weaknesses in our societies, such as the paper thin/non-existent social welfare nets we have in place, what access to healthcare should really look like, and how do we serve the most vulnerable in our communities.

Amongst some of those vulnerable are sex workers, many of whom rely on face-to-face meetings with their clients as their primary form of income. A lot of them now face eviction or worse as they make decisions between trying to earn their income and trying to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from the deadly virus. Online communities of sex workers have been thrown into a panic, of trying to develop new strategies to stay connected with their clients while riding out waves that, like the rest of us, seem to have no clear end in sight.

One strategy is that many in-person sex workers, many of whom already have large online followings, are moving towards digital work. In particular, many are flocking to OnlyFans.com, a platform sort of like instagram for which subscribes pay monthly fees to receive online content. In a recent company email, OnlyFans revealed that they’ve seen a 75% increase in signups since February, a huge upmarket tick, and many long-time established escorts on twitter have posted about starting new OnlyFans pages to help them continue to generate income.

It’s not just well-established sex workers though; many young women who’ve found themselves out of work because of Coronavirus are turning to online sex work for the first time as a way to make ends meet and put food on the table, according to this huffpost article.

Inevitably, the whorephobic backlash was quick and ruthless. This article by Julie Bindel in the Spectator glosses over the fact that sites like OnlyFans are taking the power back from big-porn moguls like XVIDEOS and Pornhub, where most content is free because it's illegally stripped from paid websites, a result of which is that very little of the money goes to content creators. and instead tries to inspire horror and disgust by describing the process of producing requested content (surprise! Sex work is work!) or exploits the fact that these women were already vulnerable because of the greater socio-economic shortcomings of our societies lack of fairly-distributed resources. Her attempt to put OnlyFans content creators in the same category as victims of sex trafficking is not only harmful, but downright degrading and dangerous to those who find empowerment from being able to earn an income during these hard times. As one twitter user commented on the article, 'there's nothing empowering about having no source of income during a pandemic."

This meme puts in simple relief the hypocrisy of many 'feminists' who think that by shooting down sex workers in the name of empowerment, they are helping them. But shaming sex workers doesn't make you a good feminist. Helping women in need who are struggling during a pandemic is. Supporting women who find their work empowering is. Supporting women who don't find their work empowering (who says work has to be empowering, and why do people mythologize sex work as HAVING to be an empowering act? Sometimes sex work is really rewarding, but sometimes sex work is just a job, just like any other job) is. Supporting work that keeps women in their homes is feminist.

In a time when we are seeing many of our most vulnerable populations being the ones at the most high-risk during this pandemic, is signaling your sense of moral superiority really the most productive use of your time? Shooting down people who are already struggling is hardly classy. It perpetuates the myth that sex workers are victims of sex trafficking (they are not, and in fact many of the loudest anti-sex trafficking voices are sex workers) or that sex work itself is not a valid form of labor. the SF Chronicle gave voice to several women last week in the ways in which OnlyFans and other online platforms have become places to give them financial stability and security during these times. Because you're in charge of your own content you can make your own decisions about what you feel comfortable posting, and at what sort of frequency. As one woman said, "“I think OnlyFans has this huge appeal because it feels very authentic. You follow me on Instagram, you see all the nonsexual content I post, you know my dog’s name and you know my band and now you get to see this other side of me.” If you are struggling and you have the energy and resources to generate some income during the worst recession since the Great Depression, then girl, you do you. And if you're not in the space to be able to do that, cheer on those that can. Feminists support each other. <3