Lulu
I guess the atmosphere that I’ve tried to create here is that I’m a friend first and a boss second, and probably an entertainer third.
—Michael Scott, The Office
Our workplaces say a lot about who we are. When you spend every workday in a place, it molds against you and becomes like a second home. In this chapter we are reminded that, just like nine-to-fivers, sex workers experience stupid bosses, arbitrary rules, and tricky relationships with coworkers. Dungeons, brothels, strip clubs, and other sex workplaces may be exoticized by the mainstream media, but in these pages they are tangible, everyday settings.
The legal Nevada brothel industry is the subject of Erin Siegal’s stunning photo essay, “American Brothel.” In providing a rare and intimate look at everyday life at Donna’s Ranch, these striking photos illuminate a segment of the sex industry that intrigues us all.
Like the rest of the United States, the sex workplace is shaped by race, as Mona Salim illustrates in “Stripping While Brown.” As one of only a few Indian women working in the New York City strip club scene, she describes how race informs her interactions with bosses, customers, and dancers alike—with consequences that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes upsetting, but always revealing of the racial hierarchies underlying our sexual desires.
Sex workers have a range of opinions about their jobs, as illustrated in $pread’s regular point/counterpoint column, “Positions.” In “Is Sex Work a Sacred Practice or Just a Job?” two pro-dommes explore whether sex work is spiritual in nature—or not. Meanwhile, in “No Sex in the Champagne Room?” a dancer and a prostitute debate the pros and cons of turning tricks in strip club VIP rooms.
For those sex workers working independently over the Internet, the solitary workplace is not without its challenges. In “Menstruation: Porn’s Last Taboo,” webcam pro Trixie Fontaine relates the social stigma around menstruation to her battle with camsites and credit card processors around showing menstruation porn.
On a more lighthearted note, in “Fucking the Movement,” Eve Ryder describes her encounter with a client who asked her to dress as an anarchist protester. Meanwhile, Sheila McClear’s “Diary of a Peep Show Girl” gives us a peek at daily life in the peep show worker’s fishbowl “office.”
All of these essays remind us that sex workers’ lives aren’t so alien. Vicariously bare and plainly told, the stories in this chapter reveal the sex workplace for what it is—no smokescreens, no media glitz. Welcome!
LULU worked on $pread during her undergraduate studies on all things related to design and art. Since leaving $pread, she has attempted to learn to cook, started a photographic series of food portraits, and is trying to see the world. When she is not working or in school, she likes European art, looking at cat pictures, and anything tech related.