March 14, 2012 • 30 mins
Cristen and Caroline talk to Melissa Petro, sex worker activist who retired from the New York City public school system after the media publicized her past work as a stripper and Craigslist sex worker. Petro talks to Stuff Mom Never Told You about how she's managed life since the scandal, the difference between consensual sex work and sex trafficking and why retiring from prostitution or escort work isn't as easy as people might think.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today is
(00:21):
a special episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You for
a couple of reasons. First of which, we are going
in depth on something that we have mentioned a couple
of times in the podcast before, but have never really
really covered more in depth, like I just said, in depth.
Uh And and that's sex work, also known as prostitution,
(00:45):
but we are going to refer to it today as
sex work, which is a positive term coined in nineteen
eighty by sex work activist Carol Lee, and it implies
consensual work on on the part of the woman, man,
transgender individual involved in it. And to talk to us
(01:07):
today about her experience in sex work is Melissa Petro,
who is a freelance writer right now, but she also
acquired the not so wonderful nickname of the Hooker Teacher
and a scandal that broke out a couple of years ago.
Right in September, Petre spoke out against Craigslist shutting down
(01:31):
its Adult Services section, and she she sort of came
out as a former sex worker because she said that
I think if you're going to state an opinion, you
ought to be able to back it up with your credentials.
As she was saying to Marie Claire, she says that
that a lot of people have such strong opinions about
sex work and yet they have no experience or personal
knowledge whatsoever. And when she came out with this uh
(01:55):
column in the Huffington's Post, she was currently employed by
the New York City School System as an art teacher,
and the New York Post did some very intensive digging
and outed her as a former sex worker. We should
clarify that she was not engaging in sex work while
(02:15):
she was um a teacher, and as a result of
the media uproar um she was reassigned by the school
system to desk duty and then she ultimately resigned in
January eleven, and since then she has been doing a
lot of work with sex Work Activism to to get
(02:35):
people's voices who are in the industry um out there,
to understand people's experiences and really bring things out of
the shadows and also delineate between consensual sex work and
non consensual sex trafficking. UM So, enough of us talking.
Here is our interview with Melissa petro Um and first up,
(02:59):
she's gonna kind of get us the backstory of what
life has been like post resignation. I guess I technically
or officially refined in April of two thousand and eleven.
I knew many months before that that I had surfer
(03:19):
or been forced to certainder my career as an outlementary
school teacher. So since then, I've been working as a
freelance writer. I've write for uh different places, Salon, I'm
a regular contributor at Jane, I did the column for
Mitch and for Daily be talking to post to different places.
Uh So I'm working full time at that and I'm
(03:41):
also like teach creative bringing two adults at a continuing
education school here in New York. And this spring I'll
be working with Red Umbrella, which is an organization of
Primes Services, two survivors of the sex in industry, and
I'm very excited to say that I'll be working with
them to create a creative raining program current and former
sex workers who are interested in UM getting more tools
(04:05):
to tell their stories through different literary venues. So I
guess all of that's been since, uh since I resigned,
and the then obviously before that. You know, when I
come forward on the Huffington Post, um I should I
guess I should say, you know, it was really it
wasn't my attention to call attention to myself in the
(04:25):
way that that article did, But ultimately the attention was called,
and I think that the message was really clear after that.
It was swift and loud and pretty resolute. And if
you have a history like mine in an opinion on
sex work that differs from any of the common views,
that you really need to keep it to yourself. And
(04:45):
uh so its including myself. I really dedicated myself to
promoting the opposite of that message. So through things like
uh the column at Bitch Magazine or the Becoming Writer's
projects with Umbrella, really promote this message that everyone, particularly
people who have been historically rendered visible, has the right
(05:07):
to be seen and heard. Now, some of the first
writing that Melissa did on sex work was for her
thesis actually at Antioch College called Selling Sex Women's participation
in the sex industry, and so he wanted to get
her insight on this intersection between academia and um sex
(05:31):
work because at the time she I believe she was
stripping while she um when she started working on her thesis.
So we asked her to catch us up and let
us know how she first got involved in sex work,
and how that led to her thesis, and how that
writing that thesis informed her job, the whole, the whole
(05:53):
cycle there was for her before as the researcher. A
definitely strip work before I was a sex worker, announce
since worker and clothes um. But I started stripping in Mexico.
I'm just doing abroad, living in Waca, Mexico, and I
ran out light, ran out of a credit My credit
(06:13):
card was one day denied at a grocery store, and uh,
at that time I needed decision to start starting. I
worked at a club called La Trumpa, The Traps, the Tramp,
and I started then. Uh what it came on and
off for a well five years, I starts. In over
a decade, I was in summers involved in sex work.
(06:34):
But I should say before all that my my best
friend at high school, Uh, Jane, had to call me
one semester before I was speaking up from Mexico and
she told me that Jade started stripping, and at that
time I had I'd just taken my first witness studies course. Ever,
so I was jumping introduced to feminism and I was
very excited by that. But then my friend Jennie calling
(06:56):
really confused. Maybe everything I had to talk about seminism
pastradicted insect work, feminism infect work contradicted entirely with what
I knew about Jennie. I you know, she wasn't a
big she had been forced, she wasn't stupid, she was
very intelligent, and according to her, she was making a
choice that she felt would improve her life. So you know,
(07:19):
I actually went to visit Jennie next club and I
really got a sense of why she was intrigued sensed
work and why she felt it was uh going to
improve her her life. And my thesis then a year later,
was making sense of my experience and myself. UM, I'm
listening to other women talk about their experiences, women like
(07:41):
myself and women like jen who were consensual effect workers, UM,
who were in some ways able to reconcile themselves as
stigma imposed upon and by their work. So that was
really my intention of doing that thesis was more to
make sense of myself and my own experience than she
out to contribute to the body of research into Hopefully
(08:09):
I want to do that too. Now. According to the
Sex Workers Project, there are millions of people involved in
sex work worldwide, some consensual, some not. But we do
tend to have this view of sex workers as individuals
who are weak needs saving, kind of looking at them
under one umbrella as being the same type of person.
(08:30):
But really there's a lot of gray area, and there's
not this need to treat them so paternalistically and mosta.
Petro made a great point in a blog series that
she wrote for Bitch magazine talking about the language of
empowerment when it comes to sex work, because a lot
of times sex work is framed as this infeminist discourse
(08:54):
as something that can be empowering for women when it
is consensual. But um, when you actually we get to
the one on one experiences of women and men and
transgendered people in the industry, um, it's not. It's not
such an either or type of situation, right, It's it's
a labor issue. Well, I really really first began thinking
(09:19):
of myself as a firmness and looking at feminists uh
knowledge in respect to sex work. There was really two camps, right,
sex workers were either empowered apparently or oppressed it inherently.
And it has my own experience and having six six
glues to other women, I knew that performance a monolithic
(09:40):
group that was I are apparently oppressed or inparently empowered. UM.
Women's stories were diverse and as an individual as the
individuals I spoken to us, they were good, they are bad,
They aren't sibilant. And I think that my reach just
really wanted to explore all the constellations of circumstances that
have but individuals to choose uh hemper. So I do
(10:02):
think that for many people sector potage choice UM. My
research argues that it's the best choice given the option
that people who choose sex work perceive is available to them.
So that goes from the you know, happy hooker model
all the way down. Even now studies UM there was
just a study connected by Jackson in college here in
(10:22):
New York City. The study called Lost Boys. And it's
really a generate of evidence that's is true even for
the most sinogram chats among individuals who tell text or
true trade texts for things they need. We have study
specifically with it. UM under age boy. So um, even
the group was recording that they were making a decision
(10:44):
to engage in this lifestyle because it was solving a problem,
and so that was a solution to that problem. So
I would really argue that problematic to take away that
option without first or in tandem solving the problem. That
it's at a strong individuals to make that choice. You know,
sometimes it's pro poverty or economics need um, And I
(11:06):
would say that whether a choice is empowered or not
is really for an individual to decide. It's not for
me or another researcher to decide. And one of the
most compelling distinctions that Melissa made was between being pro
sex worker and pro sex work industry, because, as you'll explain,
you can be one and not the other. And I
(11:29):
feel like that's a it's a it's a it's a
good way of understanding some of the tenants of sex
work activism and why that exists. I'd like to make
of myself as pro sext for her, I wouldn't say
necessarily pro sect industry. Um isn't the environment within which
that industry operates. But um, to be pro sect worker,
(11:51):
I think really means meeting people where they're at and
get even resources to make choices that are right for them.
So I would say means identifying sex for first concerns
with sex workers as a part of that conversation, and
then letting um letting tech for health accuts or current
and former sex rebdon other community introvened in their own
(12:14):
lives and ways that matter. Um. It also I think
really means believing people among that community who say they
don't need help at all, which there's certainly a large
contingency saying that's very lovely. And speaking of the cultural
taboo of consensual sex work, just the very act of
paying for sex still seems like such a huge cultural taboo,
(12:36):
even though prostitution has existed for so long throughout history. UM.
And yet in in as quote unquote open as we
might be, or more open as we might be um
regarding sex in our culture, although some people might might
argue that that's not entirely the case, um, but I
(12:58):
really wanted to ask the less out why that taboo
of exchanging money for sex still exists sexus any hand
or afformative like situation. I think it is still tabooted
in h in the column and interview with Dylan Ryan,
and she did great job of adjecting, you know what,
(13:21):
what is this um? And she spoke as of where
a woman who makes poor and talked about how her
sexuality is signified UM for more than one reason and
actually really tries to make sense of her sexuality in
despite the best stigma. And I think it's should runs
to the website and read exactly what she said, butts
paraphrase her. I think she has said, you know, it
(13:42):
really comes down to fearing what we don't know. And
people who are afraid of sex workers so I think
because they think they've never read one, you know, just
like no one looks at porn right now. Well, the
mannerity is that most people have passively met a sex worker,
or they think they haven't bet sex workers because sex
workers really are in former sex or stay closeted about
the perfessions of why we stay closeted because well it's terrible.
(14:06):
So it's really that the terrible cycle of weakness is
something we just don't talk about, even whether or not
people are participating. Petro goes on to say that even
in a perfect world, we would still have people who
want to pay for sex. So the sex trade would
not entirely disappear even in some utopia. Absolutely, I think
in a perfect world of an absolutely silly sex work,
(14:29):
I just think in this perfect world would be problem
with text and it would be problem with time because
uh well, I guess in the perfect world, you know,
a world without social economic injustices, all the dangers of
selling texts do all the dangers that we attribute as
being inherit to the perfection, I think those wouldn't exist.
(14:49):
So I think that would be the different Now. I
have a feeling that, um, there is probably a discomfort
for people who are not familiar with sex work activism
with it with notion of um, consensual sex work, of
kind of bringing sex work out of the shadows and
opening it up a bit, because there's this whole other
(15:11):
side of the coin, which is sex trafficking and people
being forced into prostitution, that kind of sexual slavery. Um.
So I wanted to also find out from Melissa how
sex work activism can negotiate between consensual and non consensual,
whether or not you can protests for or promote sex
(15:35):
worker rights while also ensuring that you aren't promoting sex
trafficking at the same time, because it's still seems like
those kind of conversations or consensual sex work and sex
trafficking are still very much tangled up in the cultural mindset. Yeah,
And going back to the Sex Workers Project, they say
(15:56):
that confusing sex workers with trafficked persons erases the voice
of sex workers worse since their working conditions adds to
their general stigmatization and impedes discussions on ways to end
human trafficking. So it's important to give people a voice
in this arena. Unfortunate today that it is still challenging,
and I think that's the reason why it's challenging is
(16:17):
because there's this disconception prevalent that there really isn't a
difference at all. Sex work is some form of sexual slavery.
And blame Pepanism for that being large part. And you know,
it's really been adapted by popular culture, the idea that
all sex workers sex laboring, all sex work is sex trafficking,
all sex work is underage sex work or fineration, sex
(16:40):
trade or sex flavory. You don't really think of underage
sex work. But there's important point. I think we have
to be gained by acknowledging that there there are two
different when two different issues, one in sex trafficking and
that is different from contentual effect working. You can absolutely
improved conditions for sex workers by choice. Um, while embatting
(17:01):
sex trafficking, I think finally we're we're ready to have
that conversation as activists. Um. I don't think anyone would
argue that someone should be led under false pree tests
into a job that they don't want. Uh. So I
think the question of sex trafficking is really a question
of waiver and labor protection and protecting individuals, human rights
(17:23):
and workers right. Because it's sex, I think it gets
um playing with yuh, it becomes a different conversation. But really, uh,
sex trafficking and trafficking is not just sex trafficking. Domestics
are trafficked. Individuals are trafficked um for further labor, against
(17:48):
their under false pretests and against their will for different reasons.
But when you start to talk about sex, you know,
we think of it as differently. And really I think
that those those individuals, those humans deserve this name protections
that any other things. There So a lot of my
Melissa's work that she has done and the women that
(18:08):
she has talked to has really focused on um, just
women in sex work, and when we asked her about
whether working conditions are different for queer, transgender, and male
sex workers, she brought up a really good point that
by virtue of her being a white female, she has
been inherently in a position of more privilege, being able
(18:32):
to speak out and having her story resonate more possibly
in the public eye, because she does fit that stereotypical
mold of what we might think of when we think
of a sex worker. And UM. So we want to
play this part of the interview because privilege and sex
work might not um might not seem like two themes
(18:54):
that would go together, but in Melissa's experience, she emphasizes
over and over again that she actually has UM she
has had a position of more privilege than a lot
of sex workers out there. I realized that, you know,
part of the interesting my story is because I'm a heterosexual, UM,
(19:15):
I'm a white woman. I have a certain look. You know,
there's like, uh that there's a lot of privilege that
comes with having Anyone with a platform has a certain
amount of privilege. And I understand that my platform is
available to me because I appear this way. Um, and
I also I mean that said, you know, I can
only feel I still can only speak from my experience,
(19:38):
and I wouldn't ever purport to I have never I
haven't done work with queer or male sex workers. I
wouldn't try to speak for them. I really think I'm
a huge fan of self representation and believing that people
should be uh given voice and give visibility to speak
(19:59):
for themselves. Uh So to learn about the working conditions
of these populations, I could say, we have to go
to those populations. And that's that I can think just
at the top of my hand. There's a place called
hook online at work, which is about easy the magazine
if that's all by for and about men in sex industry.
So they're creating their own platform, and and that's absolutely necessary.
(20:21):
So people like me who have a certain amount of
privilege and a certain platform, you know, I do think
that a responsibility of my is to not just my story,
but to create a platform like what happening with our
Umbrella or even better way I did with that Bit magazine,
where I included other other for groups voices that you know,
(20:42):
they're I could relate to or not at all. According
to the Sex Workers Project. For many people's sex workers
their best, or even their only, opportunity to earn enough
money to support their families. Like all people's, sex workers
need empowerment through access to healthcare, job training, education, and
in to discrimine anation and opportunities to make a living wage.
In more than one way, they also face a social
(21:05):
stigma they can prohibit their movement into other forms of labor.
So not only is their past work experience prohibiting them
from possibly getting a better job and more acceptable, socially
acceptable line of work, but also they're used to getting
a lot of money pretty fast. Um. So that's why
we wanted to find out whether or not retiring from
(21:26):
sex work might be harder than we might think, because certainly,
um prostitution sex work is is rarely considered a long
term career goal. But when women or men or transgender
people do make up their minds that they want to
move on beyond it, stepping out can can be challenging.
(21:48):
As Petro herself experienced, I could say that, after having
working in our industry, unwilling to do the same kind
of working class and working poor jobs, but I had
not prior to discover and sex work. I just was
not going to work for a minimum wage. Uh. You
know there was there's obviously society was very little bay
(22:10):
maybe even the work of sex work. But uh, you know,
as a women, I hae said, you know, there's really
take to be being poor either and at least you
know you can make the money you make and not
care what people think. Uh, then to be poor and
and and to be inta behind by that. So I
think that you know, for me also there was a
(22:32):
huge chap eployment history and I just wasn't willing to
work to do that that la or anymore. Um So
for someone like me who would come from or working
for background, I didn't have a lot of um insurance
in returning to that. And I think that you know,
some women that it can become a m I think
(22:52):
sec reversab really ate secropers that I spoke with really
st sex workers and needs to end and as a
temporary occupation. But unless you're pursuing and education, and then
once you have some set of hard to handle money,
which I didn't, you might not create this be necessary
um letters to transition to something else. Uh. And then
(23:12):
there of course there's always the fact that you can't
talk out the work or to close your path. And
I mean obviously for me that was something I was
unwilling or maybe just unable to do. UM. I couldn't
live in fear thinking that maybe someone will discover this
or just this idea that you know, there's a part
of me that I could never share UM. I know,
(23:33):
you know, maybe some people, which it's naive for me
or just stupid, whoever thought I could become a teacher UM.
But you know I remember really grateful. I haven't nice
to say because I couldn't be a teacher with a
great teacher. Fortunately, other people couldn't reconcile the fact that
I'd have this past and that I could then have
the common teacher or anythink our society just was not
(23:54):
ready for that. So, speaking as Petro's personal experience with
sex work UM, which he no longer doing, she's focused
on activism, on writing UM, as she explained earlier in
the podcast UM. But she leaves behind UM this this
scandal that is immortalized basically in Google searches, and we
(24:16):
really wanted to find out too whether or not her
coming forward and becoming more of a public face of
sex work activism. Um, whether it was worth the negative
side of the scandal because Caroline doesn't hurt. Didn't she
tell Marie Claire that she was essentially being stalked at
one point by New York Post reporters. Yeah, they came
to her school and the principle had to call the police,
(24:38):
thinking that there was some crazy ex boyfriend following her around.
And to me, hearing how she has dealt with everything
since then, um, really speaks to her strength of character.
Maybe two years later I can say, yeah, but two
years ago or a year ago, or I might not
(24:59):
have be and so cavalier, I mean, I say, yes,
I still regrets. And I wrote a piece for So
Jane about recently written an article for ten House and
just how I know Walker feeling sible about the the
identity that's imposed upon me, the stigmatized identity, not just
(25:20):
as former sex worker, but now I'm just like quote
unquote worker teacher. So you know, at first, obviously that's
not it's a moniker. I had embraced m today I
wouldn't stay I embrace it, but um, I understand it,
and I don't. Um, you know, I'm gonna I'll do
what I can with it to to look comfortably within
(25:41):
that identity. I mean because personally it was it was
for me like I had to give up my apartment.
I had to Uh, I was unemployable. I still end
to a certain extent. I'll never work in childhood education again. Uh,
but you know I will work in other places where
all of my build houps to be a news and UM,
you know, maybe that's what was meant for me, and
(26:04):
so I guess I'm saying I have learned to embrace it. Um.
It wasn't difficult transmission. And I think I thought I
had much more PROOFLEC and I did. I really expected
institutions to step up this for me, um, because as
an individual, I was just no watch for what it
was being targeted at me. And I really didn't feel
(26:25):
that effect. You know that I did. I had no money,
I had no way of making money. A lot I'm
a lot of Ironically, I wanted to return to sell efects,
which I didn't uh so uh standing up for what
I believe in. It's you know, one point, and I
think I mentioned in the Extra Change Chief. My therapist
and my boyfriend sat together, um and we were doing
(26:47):
a couple of therapy at that time. We both looked
at games and were strongly suggesting that I just changed
my name and moved to another state where I could
just start over. And for obvious reasons, I think, if
you know my story, I just couldn't do that. I
couldn't hide this part of who I was. So UM, today,
(27:08):
I'm really grateful that I didn't do it. Really glad
I didn't do to chage his name and somewhere else
can pretend it didn't happen. You know, I really want
to turn turn all of my life experiences into gifts
that I can keep giving or that I can use
to be useful to others, and including you know, the
whole quote unquote hook or teacher. And then we wanted
(27:30):
to know if Melissa Petro had any parting words for
our listeners, anything that she really wanted to drive home
about her experiences. UM, I think we're I'm at today. UM.
You know which political points I promote most strongly, just
as I seed that, UM, people who have have historically
(27:50):
been rendered visible, and I'm talking about sex hers and
also any other population people who who just don't don't
need to see for themselves. Really ought to be UM,
anyone who who as invade invisible has the right to
be seen and earned. And really the only way that
any true social change really can only come about by
(28:12):
listening without any sort of judgment or pomp pens and
kind of ascension to these communities and people will purported
they seek to help, those people need to be involved
in those conversations. And so when it does come to
sex work, I think we're finding in a place, UM,
the sex work UH community, sex work activists community is
in a place where we're finally willing to listen to
(28:34):
all experiences, good back, civilis and just just letting everybody
come to the table and have a place in that conversation.
And I kind of think that's how will truly solve
the problems and and empower empower people to be actors
in their own life. So thank you so much to
(28:54):
Melissa Petro for talking to us, and if listeners out
there would like to learn more about sex work activism UM.
She recommends going to the Red Umbrella Projects website, which
you can find through Google and UM. I also highly
recommend going over to Bitch magazine and checking out the
(29:16):
h Word, which was the eight week blog series that
Melissa did, which includes not only her own writing and
her own experience, but also a number of interviews with
an essays by other women um involved in sex work.
So it's some pretty some pretty fascinating conversations over there.
(29:37):
But thank you so much to Melissa for giving us
a little bit of her time and talking about something
that we rarely talk about. And when I say we
am talking about you and me, Caroline, but I'm talking
about all of us too, And maybe it's maybe it's
time for us to pay more attention to those millions
of people out there who are working in the sex
(29:57):
industry but are having to also live in the shadows
as well. Well. Since we've had this very special interview
talking to Melissa Petro today, we are going to skip
the listener mail segment of the podcast, but if you
do have anything that you want to share with us,
any ideas or thoughts about what we've just talked about,
shoot us an email at Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com.
(30:18):
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(30:39):
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you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today is
(00:21):
a special episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You for
a couple of reasons. First of which, we are going
in depth on something that we have mentioned a couple
of times in the podcast before, but have never really
really covered more in depth, like I just said, in depth.
Uh And and that's sex work, also known as prostitution,
(00:45):
but we are going to refer to it today as
sex work, which is a positive term coined in nineteen
eighty by sex work activist Carol Lee, and it implies
consensual work on on the part of the woman, man,
transgender individual involved in it. And to talk to us
(01:07):
today about her experience in sex work is Melissa Petro,
who is a freelance writer right now, but she also
acquired the not so wonderful nickname of the Hooker Teacher
and a scandal that broke out a couple of years ago.
Right in September, Petre spoke out against Craigslist shutting down
(01:31):
its Adult Services section, and she she sort of came
out as a former sex worker because she said that
I think if you're going to state an opinion, you
ought to be able to back it up with your credentials.
As she was saying to Marie Claire, she says that
that a lot of people have such strong opinions about
sex work and yet they have no experience or personal
knowledge whatsoever. And when she came out with this uh
(01:55):
column in the Huffington's Post, she was currently employed by
the New York City School System as an art teacher,
and the New York Post did some very intensive digging
and outed her as a former sex worker. We should
clarify that she was not engaging in sex work while
(02:15):
she was um a teacher, and as a result of
the media uproar um she was reassigned by the school
system to desk duty and then she ultimately resigned in
January eleven, and since then she has been doing a
lot of work with sex Work Activism to to get
(02:35):
people's voices who are in the industry um out there,
to understand people's experiences and really bring things out of
the shadows and also delineate between consensual sex work and
non consensual sex trafficking. UM So, enough of us talking.
Here is our interview with Melissa petro Um and first up,
(02:59):
she's gonna kind of get us the backstory of what
life has been like post resignation. I guess I technically
or officially refined in April of two thousand and eleven.
I knew many months before that that I had surfer
(03:19):
or been forced to certainder my career as an outlementary
school teacher. So since then, I've been working as a
freelance writer. I've write for uh different places, Salon, I'm
a regular contributor at Jane, I did the column for
Mitch and for Daily be talking to post to different places.
Uh So I'm working full time at that and I'm
(03:41):
also like teach creative bringing two adults at a continuing
education school here in New York. And this spring I'll
be working with Red Umbrella, which is an organization of
Primes Services, two survivors of the sex in industry, and
I'm very excited to say that I'll be working with
them to create a creative raining program current and former
sex workers who are interested in UM getting more tools
(04:05):
to tell their stories through different literary venues. So I
guess all of that's been since, uh since I resigned,
and the then obviously before that. You know, when I
come forward on the Huffington Post, um I should I
guess I should say, you know, it was really it
wasn't my attention to call attention to myself in the
(04:25):
way that that article did, But ultimately the attention was called,
and I think that the message was really clear after that.
It was swift and loud and pretty resolute. And if
you have a history like mine in an opinion on
sex work that differs from any of the common views,
that you really need to keep it to yourself. And
(04:45):
uh so its including myself. I really dedicated myself to
promoting the opposite of that message. So through things like
uh the column at Bitch Magazine or the Becoming Writer's
projects with Umbrella, really promote this message that everyone, particularly
people who have been historically rendered visible, has the right
(05:07):
to be seen and heard. Now, some of the first
writing that Melissa did on sex work was for her
thesis actually at Antioch College called Selling Sex Women's participation
in the sex industry, and so he wanted to get
her insight on this intersection between academia and um sex
(05:31):
work because at the time she I believe she was
stripping while she um when she started working on her thesis.
So we asked her to catch us up and let
us know how she first got involved in sex work,
and how that led to her thesis, and how that
writing that thesis informed her job, the whole, the whole
(05:53):
cycle there was for her before as the researcher. A
definitely strip work before I was a sex worker, announce
since worker and clothes um. But I started stripping in Mexico.
I'm just doing abroad, living in Waca, Mexico, and I
ran out light, ran out of a credit My credit
(06:13):
card was one day denied at a grocery store, and uh,
at that time I needed decision to start starting. I
worked at a club called La Trumpa, The Traps, the Tramp,
and I started then. Uh what it came on and
off for a well five years, I starts. In over
a decade, I was in summers involved in sex work.
(06:34):
But I should say before all that my my best
friend at high school, Uh, Jane, had to call me
one semester before I was speaking up from Mexico and
she told me that Jade started stripping, and at that
time I had I'd just taken my first witness studies course. Ever,
so I was jumping introduced to feminism and I was
very excited by that. But then my friend Jennie calling
(06:56):
really confused. Maybe everything I had to talk about seminism
pastradicted insect work, feminism infect work contradicted entirely with what
I knew about Jennie. I you know, she wasn't a
big she had been forced, she wasn't stupid, she was
very intelligent, and according to her, she was making a
choice that she felt would improve her life. So you know,
(07:19):
I actually went to visit Jennie next club and I
really got a sense of why she was intrigued sensed
work and why she felt it was uh going to
improve her her life. And my thesis then a year later,
was making sense of my experience and myself. UM, I'm
listening to other women talk about their experiences, women like
(07:41):
myself and women like jen who were consensual effect workers, UM,
who were in some ways able to reconcile themselves as
stigma imposed upon and by their work. So that was
really my intention of doing that thesis was more to
make sense of myself and my own experience than she
out to contribute to the body of research into Hopefully
(08:09):
I want to do that too. Now. According to the
Sex Workers Project, there are millions of people involved in
sex work worldwide, some consensual, some not. But we do
tend to have this view of sex workers as individuals
who are weak needs saving, kind of looking at them
under one umbrella as being the same type of person.
(08:30):
But really there's a lot of gray area, and there's
not this need to treat them so paternalistically and mosta.
Petro made a great point in a blog series that
she wrote for Bitch magazine talking about the language of
empowerment when it comes to sex work, because a lot
of times sex work is framed as this infeminist discourse
(08:54):
as something that can be empowering for women when it
is consensual. But um, when you actually we get to
the one on one experiences of women and men and
transgendered people in the industry, um, it's not. It's not
such an either or type of situation, right, It's it's
a labor issue. Well, I really really first began thinking
(09:19):
of myself as a firmness and looking at feminists uh
knowledge in respect to sex work. There was really two camps, right,
sex workers were either empowered apparently or oppressed it inherently.
And it has my own experience and having six six
glues to other women, I knew that performance a monolithic
(09:40):
group that was I are apparently oppressed or inparently empowered. UM.
Women's stories were diverse and as an individual as the
individuals I spoken to us, they were good, they are bad,
They aren't sibilant. And I think that my reach just
really wanted to explore all the constellations of circumstances that
have but individuals to choose uh hemper. So I do
(10:02):
think that for many people sector potage choice UM. My
research argues that it's the best choice given the option
that people who choose sex work perceive is available to them.
So that goes from the you know, happy hooker model
all the way down. Even now studies UM there was
just a study connected by Jackson in college here in
(10:22):
New York City. The study called Lost Boys. And it's
really a generate of evidence that's is true even for
the most sinogram chats among individuals who tell text or
true trade texts for things they need. We have study
specifically with it. UM under age boy. So um, even
the group was recording that they were making a decision
(10:44):
to engage in this lifestyle because it was solving a problem,
and so that was a solution to that problem. So
I would really argue that problematic to take away that
option without first or in tandem solving the problem. That
it's at a strong individuals to make that choice. You know,
sometimes it's pro poverty or economics need um, And I
(11:06):
would say that whether a choice is empowered or not
is really for an individual to decide. It's not for
me or another researcher to decide. And one of the
most compelling distinctions that Melissa made was between being pro
sex worker and pro sex work industry, because, as you'll explain,
you can be one and not the other. And I
(11:29):
feel like that's a it's a it's a it's a
good way of understanding some of the tenants of sex
work activism and why that exists. I'd like to make
of myself as pro sext for her, I wouldn't say
necessarily pro sect industry. Um isn't the environment within which
that industry operates. But um, to be pro sect worker,
(11:51):
I think really means meeting people where they're at and
get even resources to make choices that are right for them.
So I would say means identifying sex for first concerns
with sex workers as a part of that conversation, and
then letting um letting tech for health accuts or current
and former sex rebdon other community introvened in their own
(12:14):
lives and ways that matter. Um. It also I think
really means believing people among that community who say they
don't need help at all, which there's certainly a large
contingency saying that's very lovely. And speaking of the cultural
taboo of consensual sex work, just the very act of
paying for sex still seems like such a huge cultural taboo,
(12:36):
even though prostitution has existed for so long throughout history. UM.
And yet in in as quote unquote open as we
might be, or more open as we might be um
regarding sex in our culture, although some people might might
argue that that's not entirely the case, um, but I
(12:58):
really wanted to ask the less out why that taboo
of exchanging money for sex still exists sexus any hand
or afformative like situation. I think it is still tabooted
in h in the column and interview with Dylan Ryan,
and she did great job of adjecting, you know what,
(13:21):
what is this um? And she spoke as of where
a woman who makes poor and talked about how her
sexuality is signified UM for more than one reason and
actually really tries to make sense of her sexuality in
despite the best stigma. And I think it's should runs
to the website and read exactly what she said, butts
paraphrase her. I think she has said, you know, it
(13:42):
really comes down to fearing what we don't know. And
people who are afraid of sex workers so I think
because they think they've never read one, you know, just
like no one looks at porn right now. Well, the
mannerity is that most people have passively met a sex worker,
or they think they haven't bet sex workers because sex
workers really are in former sex or stay closeted about
the perfessions of why we stay closeted because well it's terrible.
(14:06):
So it's really that the terrible cycle of weakness is
something we just don't talk about, even whether or not
people are participating. Petro goes on to say that even
in a perfect world, we would still have people who
want to pay for sex. So the sex trade would
not entirely disappear even in some utopia. Absolutely, I think
in a perfect world of an absolutely silly sex work,
(14:29):
I just think in this perfect world would be problem
with text and it would be problem with time because
uh well, I guess in the perfect world, you know,
a world without social economic injustices, all the dangers of
selling texts do all the dangers that we attribute as
being inherit to the perfection, I think those wouldn't exist.
(14:49):
So I think that would be the different Now. I
have a feeling that, um, there is probably a discomfort
for people who are not familiar with sex work activism
with it with notion of um, consensual sex work, of
kind of bringing sex work out of the shadows and
opening it up a bit, because there's this whole other
(15:11):
side of the coin, which is sex trafficking and people
being forced into prostitution, that kind of sexual slavery. Um.
So I wanted to also find out from Melissa how
sex work activism can negotiate between consensual and non consensual,
whether or not you can protests for or promote sex
(15:35):
worker rights while also ensuring that you aren't promoting sex
trafficking at the same time, because it's still seems like
those kind of conversations or consensual sex work and sex
trafficking are still very much tangled up in the cultural mindset. Yeah,
And going back to the Sex Workers Project, they say
(15:56):
that confusing sex workers with trafficked persons erases the voice
of sex workers worse since their working conditions adds to
their general stigmatization and impedes discussions on ways to end
human trafficking. So it's important to give people a voice
in this arena. Unfortunate today that it is still challenging,
and I think that's the reason why it's challenging is
(16:17):
because there's this disconception prevalent that there really isn't a
difference at all. Sex work is some form of sexual slavery.
And blame Pepanism for that being large part. And you know,
it's really been adapted by popular culture, the idea that
all sex workers sex laboring, all sex work is sex trafficking,
all sex work is underage sex work or fineration, sex
(16:40):
trade or sex flavory. You don't really think of underage
sex work. But there's important point. I think we have
to be gained by acknowledging that there there are two
different when two different issues, one in sex trafficking and
that is different from contentual effect working. You can absolutely
improved conditions for sex workers by choice. Um, while embatting
(17:01):
sex trafficking, I think finally we're we're ready to have
that conversation as activists. Um. I don't think anyone would
argue that someone should be led under false pree tests
into a job that they don't want. Uh. So I
think the question of sex trafficking is really a question
of waiver and labor protection and protecting individuals, human rights
(17:23):
and workers right. Because it's sex, I think it gets
um playing with yuh, it becomes a different conversation. But really, uh,
sex trafficking and trafficking is not just sex trafficking. Domestics
are trafficked. Individuals are trafficked um for further labor, against
(17:48):
their under false pretests and against their will for different reasons.
But when you start to talk about sex, you know,
we think of it as differently. And really I think
that those those individuals, those humans deserve this name protections
that any other things. There So a lot of my
Melissa's work that she has done and the women that
(18:08):
she has talked to has really focused on um, just
women in sex work, and when we asked her about
whether working conditions are different for queer, transgender, and male
sex workers, she brought up a really good point that
by virtue of her being a white female, she has
been inherently in a position of more privilege, being able
(18:32):
to speak out and having her story resonate more possibly
in the public eye, because she does fit that stereotypical
mold of what we might think of when we think
of a sex worker. And UM. So we want to
play this part of the interview because privilege and sex
work might not um might not seem like two themes
(18:54):
that would go together, but in Melissa's experience, she emphasizes
over and over again that she actually has UM she
has had a position of more privilege than a lot
of sex workers out there. I realized that, you know,
part of the interesting my story is because I'm a heterosexual, UM,
(19:15):
I'm a white woman. I have a certain look. You know,
there's like, uh that there's a lot of privilege that
comes with having Anyone with a platform has a certain
amount of privilege. And I understand that my platform is
available to me because I appear this way. Um, and
I also I mean that said, you know, I can
only feel I still can only speak from my experience,
(19:38):
and I wouldn't ever purport to I have never I
haven't done work with queer or male sex workers. I
wouldn't try to speak for them. I really think I'm
a huge fan of self representation and believing that people
should be uh given voice and give visibility to speak
(19:59):
for themselves. Uh So to learn about the working conditions
of these populations, I could say, we have to go
to those populations. And that's that I can think just
at the top of my hand. There's a place called
hook online at work, which is about easy the magazine
if that's all by for and about men in sex industry.
So they're creating their own platform, and and that's absolutely necessary.
(20:21):
So people like me who have a certain amount of
privilege and a certain platform, you know, I do think
that a responsibility of my is to not just my story,
but to create a platform like what happening with our
Umbrella or even better way I did with that Bit magazine,
where I included other other for groups voices that you know,
(20:42):
they're I could relate to or not at all. According
to the Sex Workers Project. For many people's sex workers
their best, or even their only, opportunity to earn enough
money to support their families. Like all people's, sex workers
need empowerment through access to healthcare, job training, education, and
in to discrimine anation and opportunities to make a living wage.
In more than one way, they also face a social
(21:05):
stigma they can prohibit their movement into other forms of labor.
So not only is their past work experience prohibiting them
from possibly getting a better job and more acceptable, socially
acceptable line of work, but also they're used to getting
a lot of money pretty fast. Um. So that's why
we wanted to find out whether or not retiring from
(21:26):
sex work might be harder than we might think, because certainly,
um prostitution sex work is is rarely considered a long
term career goal. But when women or men or transgender
people do make up their minds that they want to
move on beyond it, stepping out can can be challenging.
(21:48):
As Petro herself experienced, I could say that, after having
working in our industry, unwilling to do the same kind
of working class and working poor jobs, but I had
not prior to discover and sex work. I just was
not going to work for a minimum wage. Uh. You
know there was there's obviously society was very little bay
(22:10):
maybe even the work of sex work. But uh, you know,
as a women, I hae said, you know, there's really
take to be being poor either and at least you
know you can make the money you make and not
care what people think. Uh, then to be poor and
and and to be inta behind by that. So I
think that you know, for me also there was a
(22:32):
huge chap eployment history and I just wasn't willing to
work to do that that la or anymore. Um So
for someone like me who would come from or working
for background, I didn't have a lot of um insurance
in returning to that. And I think that you know,
some women that it can become a m I think
(22:52):
sec reversab really ate secropers that I spoke with really
st sex workers and needs to end and as a
temporary occupation. But unless you're pursuing and education, and then
once you have some set of hard to handle money,
which I didn't, you might not create this be necessary
um letters to transition to something else. Uh. And then
(23:12):
there of course there's always the fact that you can't
talk out the work or to close your path. And
I mean obviously for me that was something I was
unwilling or maybe just unable to do. UM. I couldn't
live in fear thinking that maybe someone will discover this
or just this idea that you know, there's a part
of me that I could never share UM. I know,
(23:33):
you know, maybe some people, which it's naive for me
or just stupid, whoever thought I could become a teacher UM.
But you know I remember really grateful. I haven't nice
to say because I couldn't be a teacher with a
great teacher. Fortunately, other people couldn't reconcile the fact that
I'd have this past and that I could then have
the common teacher or anythink our society just was not
(23:54):
ready for that. So, speaking as Petro's personal experience with
sex work UM, which he no longer doing, she's focused
on activism, on writing UM, as she explained earlier in
the podcast UM. But she leaves behind UM this this
scandal that is immortalized basically in Google searches, and we
(24:16):
really wanted to find out too whether or not her
coming forward and becoming more of a public face of
sex work activism. Um, whether it was worth the negative
side of the scandal because Caroline doesn't hurt. Didn't she
tell Marie Claire that she was essentially being stalked at
one point by New York Post reporters. Yeah, they came
to her school and the principle had to call the police,
(24:38):
thinking that there was some crazy ex boyfriend following her around.
And to me, hearing how she has dealt with everything
since then, um, really speaks to her strength of character.
Maybe two years later I can say, yeah, but two
years ago or a year ago, or I might not
(24:59):
have be and so cavalier, I mean, I say, yes,
I still regrets. And I wrote a piece for So
Jane about recently written an article for ten House and
just how I know Walker feeling sible about the the
identity that's imposed upon me, the stigmatized identity, not just
(25:20):
as former sex worker, but now I'm just like quote
unquote worker teacher. So you know, at first, obviously that's
not it's a moniker. I had embraced m today I
wouldn't stay I embrace it, but um, I understand it,
and I don't. Um, you know, I'm gonna I'll do
what I can with it to to look comfortably within
(25:41):
that identity. I mean because personally it was it was
for me like I had to give up my apartment.
I had to Uh, I was unemployable. I still end
to a certain extent. I'll never work in childhood education again. Uh,
but you know I will work in other places where
all of my build houps to be a news and UM,
you know, maybe that's what was meant for me, and
(26:04):
so I guess I'm saying I have learned to embrace it. Um.
It wasn't difficult transmission. And I think I thought I
had much more PROOFLEC and I did. I really expected
institutions to step up this for me, um, because as
an individual, I was just no watch for what it
was being targeted at me. And I really didn't feel
(26:25):
that effect. You know that I did. I had no money,
I had no way of making money. A lot I'm
a lot of Ironically, I wanted to return to sell efects,
which I didn't uh so uh standing up for what
I believe in. It's you know, one point, and I
think I mentioned in the Extra Change Chief. My therapist
and my boyfriend sat together, um and we were doing
(26:47):
a couple of therapy at that time. We both looked
at games and were strongly suggesting that I just changed
my name and moved to another state where I could
just start over. And for obvious reasons, I think, if
you know my story, I just couldn't do that. I
couldn't hide this part of who I was. So UM, today,
(27:08):
I'm really grateful that I didn't do it. Really glad
I didn't do to chage his name and somewhere else
can pretend it didn't happen. You know, I really want
to turn turn all of my life experiences into gifts
that I can keep giving or that I can use
to be useful to others, and including you know, the
whole quote unquote hook or teacher. And then we wanted
(27:30):
to know if Melissa Petro had any parting words for
our listeners, anything that she really wanted to drive home
about her experiences. UM, I think we're I'm at today. UM.
You know which political points I promote most strongly, just
as I seed that, UM, people who have have historically
(27:50):
been rendered visible, and I'm talking about sex hers and
also any other population people who who just don't don't
need to see for themselves. Really ought to be UM,
anyone who who as invade invisible has the right to
be seen and earned. And really the only way that
any true social change really can only come about by
(28:12):
listening without any sort of judgment or pomp pens and
kind of ascension to these communities and people will purported
they seek to help, those people need to be involved
in those conversations. And so when it does come to
sex work, I think we're finding in a place, UM,
the sex work UH community, sex work activists community is
in a place where we're finally willing to listen to
(28:34):
all experiences, good back, civilis and just just letting everybody
come to the table and have a place in that conversation.
And I kind of think that's how will truly solve
the problems and and empower empower people to be actors
in their own life. So thank you so much to
(28:54):
Melissa Petro for talking to us, and if listeners out
there would like to learn more about sex work activism UM.
She recommends going to the Red Umbrella Projects website, which
you can find through Google and UM. I also highly
recommend going over to Bitch magazine and checking out the
(29:16):
h Word, which was the eight week blog series that
Melissa did, which includes not only her own writing and
her own experience, but also a number of interviews with
an essays by other women um involved in sex work.
So it's some pretty some pretty fascinating conversations over there.
(29:37):
But thank you so much to Melissa for giving us
a little bit of her time and talking about something
that we rarely talk about. And when I say we
am talking about you and me, Caroline, but I'm talking
about all of us too, And maybe it's maybe it's
time for us to pay more attention to those millions
of people out there who are working in the sex
(29:57):
industry but are having to also live in the shadows
as well. Well. Since we've had this very special interview
talking to Melissa Petro today, we are going to skip
the listener mail segment of the podcast, but if you
do have anything that you want to share with us,
any ideas or thoughts about what we've just talked about,
shoot us an email at Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com.
(30:18):
You can also find us on Facebook and like us,
I'd really appreciate it, and you can check us out
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and please check out
our blog during the week for more great information at
how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
(30:39):
Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
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