A recent debate with a friend about the ethics of prostitution ended with him accusing me of intellectual arrogance, and me accusing him of making up fictional statistics to support his moralising. My assertions that the conceptions of "prostitution" that most people take up issue with are in fact misrepresented as such, and are actually paying for rape, fell on deaf ears. Meanwhile, his depiction of the prostitute as an "eighteen-year-old girl who got mixed up and doesn't know what she wants" ground my gears with its primitive conception. However, it was clear that we were both arguing from prejudiced intellectualised points of view that may have very little to do with the actual experience of selling sex. So I decided to talk to my friend Darius, a former escort about what that experience was for him. Indigo: How long did you spend in the sex industry?
Darius: From end of my senior year until 2013, so three years - 2010 to 2013. I: And how did you start? D: Ahm (laughs) I was - I had moved to Palm Desert, California, halfway through my senior year and uh I was just like bored all the time, there's really nothing to do over the summer and I got into the world of online dating, and just like hooking up with guys but the area that I lived in there were a lot of rich old men who were widowed or married or single and they wanted some company, they were willing to pay for it and the first time someone offered me money to take me out I thought "ok. cool", and it was so easy (laughs). I: So would you say that a lot of your customers were married to women, or had been in relationships with women? D: Yes. Most of them. Especially in California I: Was California the only place where you worked as an escort? D: No, I also did - I moved to New York at the end of the year, and I did it here for a while, and the following year I moved to Ohio for a few months and did it out there. Um, Ohio was similar to California in that I got old - people were older and married or had been married. I: Was there a specific racial demographic that you worked for? D: Honestly I've never had a black client. They've been all white or hispanic men. I: There seems to be this conception of the prostitute as a young, naive, probably white, woman. How do you relate to that stereotype, when it obviously doesn't describe you? Can you talk a little bit on this? D: I feel like it's a - I don't know glorified image of prostitution where I feel that the reality that I know, all the sex workers I've know in my life time, most of them have been one - in the LgBTQ community, young, and usually people of colour. Just because of I wouldn't say that we fave that many more challenges in our life time, but I will say that being an LGBTQ person of colour . . . it's kind of makes it a little tougher. I: As a prostitute in a state in which prostitution is a misdemeanour with a penalty of up to three months in jail and $500 fine, how would describe your relationship with law enforcement? D: Ahm, it's something that I always think about, but it's something that never directly affected me because I've never been caught. And I don't know anyone who has and I'm not sure that it's something the police department really cares about anymore. I'm not sure if they're aware of it, because it's not as in you face as it was twenty, thirty years ago. I: Just because it's moved to online transactions? D: Yeah, it used to be that you could walk down Eighth Avenue and you definitely know which ones are them, and now - I mean to the trained eye you can still walk down Eighth Avenue and point them out, but it's not as easy to see. Law enforcement is . . . not as scary. I: So what would you say the scariest thing about being a prostitute is? There are obviously a lot of hazards associated with the job. D: Um, making sure that you get home (laughs) um, you never know who you're going to meet, what kind of person they are, what their history is, whether they'll be alone when you get there, what their intentions are. So I always had this thing where I would always send a friend the address and phone number of where I was going, and if I had the name, whatever name they gave me, just so someone knows where I am. I: So you would say the Johns are the biggest risk factor? More so than STDs? D: Stds if you are careful, um I mean they're a big thing because people love a good blow job and I don't know any people who enjoy it using flavoured condoms. Um, but the options for that are getting better and better as time goes on. We've got PrEP, and we've got all this publicity and advertising about how and why t's impotant to havesafe sex and talking to your partners about how important it is to get tested. I: So, it's been two and a half years since you stopped working as an escort- D: Something like that (laughs) I: On-and-off? (laughing) Since you stopped full-time - you retired? D: Yeah. I: And why did you make that choice, to stop your main stream of income? D: Because um I started to define myself by what I did and my whole life I've been an object of sex for older men ever since I can remember and when I sat down and started to think about who I am, that was a huge part of it and I didn't want it to be that way. I wanted to learn to define myself without using that. Outside of it - yeah, I'm an animal, I'm a sexual being by nature, but I'm also a human being and being a human being means that I get other choices than to just be sexual. SO I wanted to explore those other choices. I: Do you have any thoughts on legislation around laws that you want to share? D: Ahm, not particualtly I mean like , there are things I've been hearing about laws in certain places - sodomy is banned in this state, or whatever, and it's stupid as fuck, it's just stupid. That's as far as my thoughts on that go. It's stupid, whatever. I: Do you have a community of other escorts that you know? D: Ahm yeah, I call them my Village Gays. They're gays you see walking around in large groups in the Village. Usually just a few of them are pulling dates - you pull a date, taking the stroll is a term that's still used today. Except for the stroll is no longer a specific street. Now it's posting an ad and walking around with Grindr app open. I: What is it that attracts you back when you do it occasionally since you kind of retired from being full-time? D: The money! (laughs) the money! Um, it's hard. And I work hard, since I stopped doing that I decided that I was going to work my ass off to get where I needed to get, and I have been. I've been working my ass off, but it's still hard. And that's so easy. So easy. Especially like experiencing that, and living that, and knowing how easy it it, there are times when I sit on that rooftop and I go "Why am I choosing to make it hard? Why I am I choosing the hard way when the easy way is just a click away?" I: And what's the answer? D: Because I now know that I'm worth more than that. I: Do you see prostitution as something that devalued you? D: Personally, yes. I don't - I don't judge at all. I think people gotta do what they gotta do, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it to be perfectly honest. What was wrong was the way that it made me see myself. And that's what I don't want to go back to. I couldn't care less about what people say about me, or what they thought, or whatever. But it's what I said and what I thought about myself that I think really mattered. It just . . . didn't make me feel good. I: Do you think that you came from a plan before you started where you already felt devalued? D: Yeah, definitely. Um, I just- my whole life, I've been raped my whole life from a young age, so it was like already, it was already how I saw myself, so that was just a perfect job opportunity for someone who I mean exists for that reason anyways. Yeah. I: Do you think that people like myself who are very pro-legalisation of sex work - both for the benefits to sex workers in that you don't have to fear law enforcement - but also because I think tat someone can be happy and healthy doing sex work - D: Absoultely. I: Do you think that's a myth we made up? D: That people can be healthy doing sex work? I: That it can come from a totally psychologically healthy place, and you do it because you enjoy it? D: I don't think that's a myth at all. I completely agree with that. I mean my reasons for not doing it are completely selfish and personal and have nothing to do with the way I feel that sex work makes me look, or I don't believe that sex work devalues me as a person, it's strictly among my self-worth and that I don't feel like I'm quite a strong enough person to get back into the game yet. But once I am, I feel that I'm there and I feel the confidence and know my self-worth, hell-yeah, I would jump back in the game in a heartbeat. It's easy, sex is fun, it's amazing it makes us feel good, money is fun, it's amazing, it makes us feel good. It's easy! I: Say that again about NY vs Ohio? D: In New York, there was so much sex involved. And in Ohio, there was hardly any, because most of these lonely old men just wanted some company. Someone to take to breakfast or there was Glenn, he was a pilot and there was this little small airport in Finlay that we would just go to and he would take me flying. We'd fly around, just for a few minutes, it was just - we had so much fun! Or take me to the movies, or anything, and you'd get paid hourly. Though charge by the half-hour because most men can't last an hour, hardly a half-hour. So you'd charge by the half-hour.
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