Interesting read .. A sacred trust

[Miss*Bijou]

Very Interesting perspective on sex work.. written by Veronica Monet.
I thought some of you might enjoy to read it as well..
(those of you who can read, of course! )

Warning to thoses who are reading-challenged, lazy or uninterested & who will complain about it:
Below (Linked) text IS longer than ONE paragraph.




http://trishymouse.net/veronica1.html





> Bijou

 

[Miss*Bijou]

A SACRED TRUST ~~ Written by Veronica Monet ~~


"...I no longer see a division between matters of the flesh and matters of the spirit."




I am an escort. I have a website, which I use to advertise my services. I went into business for myself in 1989 a few years after graduating from college. I had a lot of work experience in both blue collar and white-collar venues before I became a sex worker. I made an informed decision, an empowered choice to become a prostitute. Throughout this article you will notice that I use the words escort, prostitute, sex worker and whore interchangeably. There are in fact some differences between the job of an escort and the job of a prostitute and I know them well since I have worked as both. But for political reasons, for the purpose of bringing women together instead of perpetuating all the labels that divide us, I often choose to call myself a WHORE.


I got into the business because it afforded me three things my straight jobs did not provide: 1.) more money, 2.) more free time and 3.) more autonomy. I stayed in the business because shortly after I started working as a prostitute, I heard an unfamiliar sound: someone was whistling a tune. Turned out to be me. I was whistling a happy tune on my way home from working as a prostitute. Then I noticed I was bounding out of bed in the morning or afternoon as the case might vary, with enthusiasm and joy. What was happening to me? Wasn’t the sex industry supposed to lower my self-esteem? Make me feel degraded?


My childhood and adolescence was spent in a right-wing religious family and a conservative poor white neighborhood. I read the Bible from cover to cover the year I turned twelve. I graduated from Oregon State University an honor student with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Business Administration. I held a variety of jobs before, during and after my college years. In that time I managed to try a variety of occupations, working as an English tutor, a waitress, a daycare assistant, a change-person in a casino, an administrative assistant for two major computer corporations and a marketing representative for a radio station. I also managed to acquire some interesting avocations such as freelancing as a writer and producing and moderating several community access television shows.


This usually perplexes people. With so many opportunities and experiences and an education, why on earth would I choose to be a prostitute? One explanation for my choice is that I was raised by parents who weren’t afraid of being different from their family, friends and neighbors. . My father especially was a free thinker who flew in the face of convention if he thought he had a better idea. One of those ideas was to keep my sister and me out of public school. My mother taught us via correspondence courses and much to the surprise of everyone, my sister and I both received an excellent education. So at an early age I learned to give myself the freedom to think my own thoughts and make my own judgments. I learned to look for what works instead of how things are “suppose” to be.


In addition to that, my experiences as part of the workforce in the “straight” world left me hollow and cold inside. A real low point was the six weeks I spent wearing a hairnet while I pulled the graveyard shift at a cannery. I found the work to be mechanical and soul-less. There certainly was not any opportunity for creativity, individuality or anything resembling job satisfaction. You come to work, punch your time card, stand at your station on a conveyor belt that carries an endless supply of green beans or corn and complete one task over and over until the whistle blows and you can take a 30 minute lunch break. I call that degrading. I find it repulsive to think that any human being should be expected to work like they are some mindless machine.


Now some people think prostitution is degrading because you are just an object to be used by the client. That is certainly one way to do prostitution and I am sure plenty of sex workers and their “tricks” approach it that way. That hasn’t been my experience. When I first started working as a prostitute, I met some men who would have liked to deal with me in that manner, but I learned to avoid those men in the future. And there were times when I treated my clients like they were just a number instead of an individual. But you know that happens in every business. It happens every day, when you go to the grocery store or the bank or the post office or the bank, etc. The person on the other side of the counter may greet you and interact with you with enthusiasm and sincerity or they may look right through you uttering that monotone “next”. I have learned that I have more to give my clients and everyone else in my life when I am taking good care of myself first. Then I have something left of value to share with others. It also helps when you can limit the number of customers you service. Contrast the difference between a fast food drive-through window and a five-star sit down restaurant. Some things are just a function of physics and math. That is one of the reasons I became an escort after spending several years being a prostitute. Escorting enables me to spend more quality time with each of my clients instead of trying to see as many people as possible.


Since I don’t share this culture’s negative views of sex, I do not see work that involves sexual behavior or sexual expression or sexual images to be inherently degrading. Nor do I think there is some narrow definition of acceptable sexuality that we must all conform to. And I have certainly created a work environment for myself that is superior to any I experienced while working as someone’s employee.


My first love always has been and always will be writing and public speaking. I am my most alive and most fulfilled when I am expressing myself through the written and spoken word. The sex industry has enriched and informed both my writing and my public speaking. They go together very well. Before I became a sex worker, I hosted a small community access television show and I had a newspaper column in a small alternative paper. I enjoyed both activities immensely and did both for absolutely no pay. But it was a lot of work trying to pursue those interests and hold down a 40-hour-a-week job to pay the bills.


The hardest part though, was showing up in the corporate setting, or more accurately, making sure I didn’t bring all of myself to the corporate setting. To keep my job is was necessary to hide so much of the true me. I couldn’t be too forward or too flirtatious or too aggressive or too angry or too honest or too happy or too loud or too spontaneous or too innovative or too original or too efficient or too ambitious or too smart or too opinionated or too sexy or too happy. Always the games of office politics and gender inequities would prevent me from winning many friends or allies in the office environment. One company wrote me up for “not smiling enough” and my job did not entail working with the public. This particular computer company was incredibly sexist and the one I had worked at before was not. But still on some level, to greater and lesser degrees I always felt less than authentic.


As a sex worker I can choose when I will be authentic and when I won’t. I can construct my life in a manner that allows me to be authentic most of the time, which is my preference. This is not how all sex workers choose to work. For some, sex work is the ultimate con game. For me, sex work is part of my spiritual path.


At this point in my career, I have undergone quite a profound spiritual journey. Not all aspects of that were related to the sex industry, but sex work has played an integral part in my spiritual development.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

In the beginning I viewed most men as the enemy. I felt victimized by this male dominated world and I was angry. In 1989 I was verging on becoming a lesbian separatist. Somewhere along the line in the last eleven years, these negative beliefs were replaced with a more constructive and positive outlook on life. I still enjoy making love to women, don’t get me wrong. But I certainly don’t hate men or see them as the enemy. In fact, I married one – a man that is. I have been happily married for over eight years now. Sex workers are not supposed to have private lives or marital bliss in the view of most. Only “good girls” get to be happy. There are no happy endings for the hookers in the movies or the novels. Sorry, real life does not always imitate art. If you want a detailed list of whores who married during the Yukon Gold Rush, check out The Good Time Girls by Lael Morgan, Epicenter Press 1998.


My transformation was due to a multitude of factors including my pursuit of a clean and sober life (a path I had been on for four years before becoming a prostitute), actively seeking spiritual guidance (some people call it prayer), and paying a therapist to help me deal with childhood issues (not all of Daddy’s original thinking was as successful as the home-schooling). I also became acquainted with some women who were not only prostitutes, but also political activists and educators and feminists. They became my mentors in so many ways. I learned about the history of my chosen profession, about sacred prostitution and how so many strong-willed women of the past had preferred an independent life as a courtesan to the indentured life of a wife. I learned that long ago sex was sacred and considered a healing and creative force for good. I met many women who had been inexplicably drawn to prostitution despite diverse backgrounds. One woman had been a missionary’s wife before becoming a prostitute. Another had a Ph.D. in sexuality and offered her services both as a prostitute and a sexual surrogate. Yet another was a licensed marriage and family therapist by day and a prostitute by night. And there was of course the infamous traffic cop who became a call girl (Cop to Call Girl by Norma Jean Almodovar, Simon and Schuster 1993).


These women were far from degraded or victimized. Every breath they took screamed power. Perhaps in a different world, these same women would have been doing something else for a living. It is difficult to know what the world would be like if we didn’t have to contend with a world culture that is so thoroughly shaped by patriarchy, racism, sexism and materialism. Maybe mothers would make more money than anyone else would because they birth, nurse and care for our young – presumably our most valuable resource. It is intolerable that the most important contributions to society are not recognized or rewarded because primarily women or minorities perform them. But given the choices and opportunities available, many women (and some men) have found sex work to be a viable, fulfilling and rewarding profession as well as one with economic incentive.


I believe that if we lived in a world without sexism or economic disparity between men and women, that prostitution would still exist. It would no doubt take a somewhat different form. Perhaps it would be equally available to women as well as men. The price might be more reasonable as it usually is with products and services that are legal. It would no longer be associated with drugs or crime or danger since it would be a legitimate service not unlike professional therapy or entertainment. Some prostitutes would be more into theatrics and performing to entertain their clients. Some prostitutes would pursue healing and stress relief through sexuality. And others would bring the possibility for spiritual and emotional transformation to their sessions. Actually all those different ways of performing and providing prostitution services exist today, but in a world that insists that all prostitution is evil and destructive.


Looking back on my chosen path of being a sex worker, I have learned a lot. I didn’t learn the things I was told I would learn. I didn’t learn what a dangerous, disappointing world this is or to be bitter and jaded. On the contrary, I went into the experience with that frame of mind and point of reference. Eleven years later I am full of hope and inspiration. I have learned that the people in your life are merely reflections of your inner self and if you don’t like what your life is showing you then you had better change yourself. I have learned that you get back what you put out into this world, not always from the same people mind you. It’s more like there is some cosmic scorecard and if you give it will come back to you somehow, especially if you aren’t expecting it. I have learned that men are fragile and afraid just like I am. I have learned to hold their vulnerability with love and compassion. I have learned that there are not many differences between men and women at all except that the world expects different things from us. I have learned that sex is a powerful force for good. Sex not only relieves stress, burns calories, clears your complexion and releases endorphins; sex also has the power to heal and transform us emotionally and spiritually. Sex is not only of the flesh. Sex is also of spirit. I have learned that this unnatural division between the body and the soul that organized religion has been preaching for years, is destructive. I look around me and see all the signs of sex. The flowers in spring are gorgeous sex organs, the feathers on the colorful male birds are for attracting a mate to have sex, the fancy bird calls are love songs inviting sex, the cells in my body divide on a daily basis performing the most basic form of sex. There is no life without sex.


Today, as a courtesan, escort and whore, I attempt to bring my heart and soul to my interactions with my clients. I look for opportunities to add something positive to their life beyond an orgasm. If clients were only seeking physical release they would stay home and do it to themselves for free. Men pay for sex because they desire contact with another human being. Sometimes that desire may become warped or perverted just as some people marry for selfish and injurious reasons. But many men are seeking something that is missing in their lives. They think maybe it is sex, but they don’t know for sure. They are confused as to why they are talking about something they thought they would never tell anyone. They didn’t expect to feel so emotional or to shed a tear. But there it is and as a professional sex worker you have a sacred trust to treat that vulnerability with respect and to help guide the professional sexual experience into a direction that can be healing, transforming and uplifting. That is my sacred trust. And that is why I was transformed from someone bitter to someone inspired. That is why my search for an income is now married to my spiritual life. That is why I no longer see a division between matters of the flesh and matters of the spirit.



> Bijou

 

[donjoh]

Interesting indeed

... and very well said.

Me thinks the majority of Perbettes have similar views?

 

[contessa]

Excellent reading!

Merci, Miss Bijou!

 

[Thais]

Thank you!
Articles like this should be given to anybody who believes the stereotypes...

 

[maxx50]

That was spiritual uplifting

I have to say for a man that dose not find that meny books . easy to read .. in keeping my attention . Those few paragraphs you have posted . i found i could not stop myself from reading on . If the books is just as good .. i will be looking for it.
I know a girl just like that women..I feel privileged Mia
Thank for posting .. I think it is a great insight in to the sexual spiritual journey that we all are on

 

[SeaToSky]

I find it too long, and self-indulgent. I'm just not interested in the spiritual development of some random stranger no matter how much she enjoys sex work.

 

[RobBC]

I find it too long, and self-indulgent. I'm just not interested in the spiritual development of some random stranger no matter how much she enjoys sex work.

Ditto, although I'd rather see more articles like this than the "mainstream" negative rants about how prostitution is evil, etc.

 

[Lady Companion]

Thank you Bijou

I found it intriguing and was able to identify with nearly all of it. In fact 85% of that may as well have been my biography.

I rekon that most, if not all of the ladies here have moved from feeling perhaps marginally exploited to fully empowered over the years. However, it isn't something that is oft discussed, and therefore our feelings, although very positive, can in themselves be somewhat isolating.

Not choosing to conform to societies narrow-minded preconceived notions of what constitutes appropriate for an educated lady is an internal battle I fight on a daily basis. I know this is the right lifestyle choice for me at the moment, as it provides a host of positive experiences and enlightenment which I would not have the ability to tap into via more conventional methods.

It's beautiful and refreshing to see my personal thoughts and views shared and articulated in such an elloquent manner.

 

[Thais]

I don't hear the spiritual aspect brought up much even in the community of people living and actively participating in the lifestyle. Relaxation, fun, and stress release that pay-for-play provides are discussed. So is female empowerement.

But this dimension, in my view, is very rarely mentioned:

"Sex not only relieves stress, burns calories, clears your complexion and releases endorphins; sex also has the power to heal and transform us emotionally and spiritually. Sex is not only of the flesh. Sex is also of spirit...

...But many men are seeking something that is missing in their lives. They think maybe it is sex, but they don’t know for sure. They are confused as to why they are talking about something they thought they would never tell anyone. They didn’t expect to feel so emotional or to shed a tear. But there it is and as a professional sex worker you have a sacred trust to treat that vulnerability with respect and to help guide the professional sexual experience into a direction that can be healing, transforming and uplifting."

 

[Thais]

As a follow up on the point above, from another Veronica Monet's article:
http://trishymouse.net/veronica1.html

...Our culture makes it very difficult to have anything approaching an adult attitude toward sex. We are admonished to feel guilty and embarrassed and to judge others for being different or freer sexually.

As a sex worker, I work in other people's sexplace as my profession. It's not easy despite the stereotypes about it being an easy way to make money. The most difficult aspect is the client's brain. If I only had to deal with bodies, it would be simple and certainly boring. Working with the minds and emotions of others is very challenging as well as interesting.

I have known few people who have little or no shame surrounding their sexuality. In fact, I have found it necessary to deal with a mountain of other people's sexual shame over the course of my career in the sex industry. It may be one of the primary reasons people turn to sex workers for assistance. The myth, of course, is that orgasms are being purchased whenever someone pays for sex. In reality, there are usually much more complicated emotional and mental forces at work.

The guilty may want assurances that they are innocent and the shamed want to feel normal. This embracing of sexual diversity is what working in the sex industry is really about. The client desires to be accepted as they are. Why else would so many bring their most hidden cravings and secret regrets and embarrassing physical failings to a total stranger? There is an element of absolution carrying an almost religious tone each time a man hands a prostitute a wad of cash. Whether the transaction occurs in a dark urban alley for 15 minutes or aboard a private jet headed somewhere for an extended "vacation", when sexual contact commences, the dance will begin. And that dance has far more to do with how sex occupies the client's brain than whether his dick gets hard.

Of course, what is in anyone's brain will determine their relationship with sex. It is mostly how people think that turns them on sexually. Unfortunately, many religious or otherwise shamed individuals will find sex more of a turn on if they perceive it to be taboo, dirty, wrong, shameful or degrading to them or their partner. This can invite sex that results in hurt or harm to one or more of the participants. When only the sense of the forbidden can get you off, you may be tempted to push your partner into something they do not enjoy.

If you have less shame surrounding your sexuality, it is easier to negotiate for what you want with a potential partner. You are more likely to find the words to describe what you desire and the ability to explore the needs and wants of another. Less shame results in better sex for everyone. Even if feeling naughty is your thing, it needs to be in the context of consensual adult behavior and that can only occur if all participants have an equal voice and the ability to express their desires. Shame is the ultimate silencer and profoundly reduces one's sense of empowerment. Consequently, when one is driven by shame, one tends towards perpetrator type behaviors.

This can help to explain the phenomenon we are currently seeing in the Catholic priesthood. That so many men who have taken a vow of celibacy have turned out to be pedophiles is really not a mystery and should not come as a shock. By attempting to circumvent the natural sex drive, one is almost certainly doomed to merely mutate and distort it into something ugly and destructive. The Catholic church once acknowledged the need for prostitution in society. They did not take a very kind stance toward the profession, but it was nevertheless steeped in practicality.

Prostitution was deemed a necessary evil not unlike toilets and sewers. Without the sewer, society would be up to it's collective necks in shit. Likewise, prostitution was considered a means of venting undesirable but nevertheless unpreventable sexual urges without destroying the moral fiber of the family. Because of this utilitarian, albeit dismal approach to the oldest profession, the Catholic church was in the prostitution business for awhile. Brothels were disguised as nunneries and sex for money was just one more way the Catholic church took up collections. Eventually, the Pope decided to close the Catholic brothels because he felt is was unseemly for the church to be in the sex trade.

I am not suggesting that a few trips to a brothel would cure pedophiles in Bishop's robes. But sex is an instinct with great power. To ignore it is to invite disaster.

I am asserting that an incomprehensible amount of pain and destruction has been inflicted on humans and the society they inhabit by shame and guilt and denial. It seems our fear of losing control has driven us to extremes when it comes to the sexual arena. I can't understand why the simpler path of honesty and acceptance is not taken. By continuing to fear sex, we only invite it to take forms that are menacing and frightful.

Working with my clients, I strive to bring healing and nurturing and joy. My clients are often awe struck with the degree of humor and spiritual inspiration they experience in my sessions. They think it must be because I am so special. They express confusion at how I can be so intelligent and loving yet perform what they see as a disgusting job. Sometimes their joy is quickly overcome with fear as their assumptions are pushed aside by the reality of my presence and what they have just experienced. I watch them struggle to integrate the truth of my existence with what they have a need to believe is true about sex and women and prostitution.

Of course, I do not believe that prostitution is a necessary evil, nor do I think our sexual urges are akin to shit. I believe sex to be a beautiful part of life as well as the very source of life. It is where all creativity springs from. All that is beautiful and inspiring comes from the sexual. This includes romantic love, babies, art and flowers. Flowers are, after all, beautiful smelly sex organs.

Prostitution was the first religion as seen in ". . . the Temples of the Sacred Prostitutes. In these temples, men were cleansed, not sullied, morality was restored, not desecrated, sexuality was not perverted, but divine. The original whore was a priestess, the conduit to the divine, the one through whose body one entered the sacred arena and was restored" [Re-vamping the world: On the return of the Holy Prostitute, Utne Reader, August/September 1985, p.120.] The reason the Old Testament Bible spends so many pages reviling the "Whore of Babylon" is not because she is so different from the old testament god. It is because she is the competition. The Holy Prostitutes were called Quedishtu which literally means "the undefiled one."

If we are to begin to work in our sexplace, we must begin by reframing our attitude toward sex and the body. They are not evils which separate us from our salvation and tempt us toward our demise. On the contrary, sex can lead us toward life, love, intimacy and enlightenment. It is shame, denial, obsession, addiction, selfishness, lust, greed, envy, hatred, rage, etc. that we must learn to overcome. Ironically, even our attempts to be free from these must include acceptance and giving up a degree of control. As in the "little death" of the orgasm where we must surrender our control, mastery of life's greatest spiritual truths requires an element of giving up control in order to be transformed. When you think of it like that, orgasms are a great metaphor for baptism.

 

[Karlheinz]

Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness at its worst

Give me a break, girl! You are doing it for money. Wanna be a saint? Do it for free! Would you?
If you wouldn't do it for free you have selfish motives.

Get off the pedestal before you fall on your face! What should be celebrated about women sleeping with other women's husbands? Isn't marriage supposed to be sacred?

Don't get me wrong, I am here on the hooker board along with everybody else, but let's face it. What we do - men AND women - is everything but sacred. What's next? Expecting awards for it?

My 2 cents.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Give me a break, girl! You are doing it for money. Wanna be a saint? Do it for free! Would you?
If you wouldn't do it for free you have selfish motives.

Get off the pedestal before you fall on your face! What should be celebrated about women sleeping with other women's husbands? Isn't marriage supposed to be sacred?

Don't get me wrong, I am here on the hooker board along with everybody else, but let's face it. What we do - men AND women - is everything but sacred. What's next? Expecting awards for it?

My 2 cents.

Whew... Expecting an award??? WTF?


I don't know where you got the idea anyone was aiming for sainthood here, buddy..? Is a nurse only sincere in the work she does if she does it for free? How about a teacher? Are a teacher's intentions only good if he/she gives up his paycheque? How about a Doctor? That's a ridiculous point to make! This is work.. everyone works to pay the bills, do they not?! Therefore we also get paid for what we do.


I find it very interesting that you chose to bring up the idea of marriage being sacred. I am not married.. Are you? Without offending anyone, I personally don't buy into the marriage idea. If you do, don't assume everyone does. I choose to believe whomever chooses to see me as an SP is a big boy. One that can live with whatever decision or action he's taken. I am accountable for mine every day. What are you trying to say? That we should all do what we do in shame? That the slightest feeling of empowerement should be shameful? Are you kidding me?? Give me a break! You might want to go back to that cave you came out from cause it's now 2007 and you might be in for a shock.


You are entitled to your opinion on this but I really think you may be the one with some big issues with shame in what you are doing. Perhaps you should look into dealing with those issues and strong negative views about what you are doing instead of projecting your guilt onto us.


I, for one, don't care to carry your guilt. Seriously...

So in my view it paints it the profession in the most rosy light possible, and while I'm sure these feeling and aspects do exist, there is a significant amount of negative aspects to the profession that are completely glossed over.

I agree but these negative aspects have been pretty much all that has been heard (ad nauseam) about the subject. It is the only side that most ppl outside of this business know about and automatically assume is all of our reality. Every SP's experience is different, just like our motivations, our views or philosophy. While I agree that for many there are mostly negative aspects, not all of us feel that whatever negatives there may be, the positive is still what strikes us or affects us the most. Every profession has negatives, not just this one. However no other profession gets as much exposure solely based on the negative sides. That's why I think this was interesting, as it describes one person's positive experience.


> Bijou

 

[Thais]

I can agree with that, but I think it the case would be more powerful if one were to acknowledge some of the pitfalls comment on them and then say dispite them, the positives outweight the negatives. Simply ignoring them or denying you've experienced any of them, in my opinion, isn't nearly as powerful because it comes across as extreme,(ie an advocate position), relative to it being a well balanced objective viewpoint. But that's just my opinion. It's a great article regardless of this minor criticsm.

It is a very good point that it builds stronger argument.
However, many people do not deny experiencing those negatives, such as death threats or physical abuse: they simply DON'T experience them. And that is also part of the truth.

Linda Nguyen,
Vancouver Sun
Published: Sunday, June 17, 2007

"Prostitution and violence do not always go hand in hand, according to a
three-year academic study by Simon Fraser University.
In the first study of its kind in the country, criminology graduate student
Tamara O'Doherty found that two-thirds of off-street prostitutes - specifically high-end escorts - have never experienced violence on the job."

 

[Thais]

That would make for an interesting poll here because I personally find it hard to believe. Not that I wouldn't like to believe it, I would, it simply doesn't ring true to me based on my discussions with SP's that I know.

But in any event, my comments weren't restricted to violence in any case.

Besides, it's not also out of the realm of possiblity that the study itself is flawed. Certainly one study regardless of the results, should never be the last word on a subject.

True. We don't know the design of the study. But it had 49 participants and lasted 3 years, which is probably a larger statistical sample than most people who know SPs enough to have deep discussions are exposed to. And may be we should have a poll, because PERB also provides a decent statistical sample...
What other factors, easily identifiable in poll options, other than violence, would you suggest? Poll like that has to be designed properly too.

Here's the full text of the Vancouver Sun article:

Prostitution and violence do not always go hand in hand, according to a
three-year academic study by Simon Fraser University. In the first study of its kind in the country, criminology graduate student Tamara O'Doherty found that two-thirds of off-street prostitutes - specifically high-end escorts - have never experienced violence on the job.

The number of prostitutes in Vancouver is estimated to be in the thousands, but only 10 to 20 per cent are actually working on the street, O'Doherty said. The study shows that 80 to 90 per cent work as off-street prostitutes running their own businesses through newspaper and online advertisements, bawdy houses and massage parlours. She said her research shows people who support criminalizing prostitution because it's violent or not a choice are basing their opinions on the experiences of street prostitutes who "are pushed into isolated areas of the city" and work in fear of the police.

O'Doherty contacted Vancouver prostitutes by sending out mass e-mails to several escort services. The 49 women who responded were not what most people would stereotype as prostitutes.

"These women weren't blonde bombshells who were there for the porn star
experience.' My biggest surprise in doing this research was how incredibly articulate these women in the industry were," O'Doherty said. "People obviously assume women wouldn't make the choice to go into prostitution but I found these women are from every walk of life," she said. Some women were sex workers only on weekends with regular out-of-town clients.
"They're moms, artists, lawyers, nurses, police officers and teachers. You would have no idea if you had one of them living next door to you," she said. More than 90 per cent of the study participants were university-educated.

O'Doherty argues these women rarely or never experienced violence - physical or sexual assault, threats, clients unwilling to pay or use a condom - because they're allowed to negotiate terms of their transactions, unlike street sex workers.

Aurea Flynn of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter said the study goes too far pushing for the legitimization of prostitution. "What we know is that the average age of prostitutes when they begin the trade is 14 years old and that most women were molested or raped before they even begin," she said. "The fact that they're not reporting it in their current work situation doesn't exclude that they didn't experience violence from males in the past."

SFU professor John Lowman has been researching violence in prostitution since the '70s and said these results confirmed what he's suspected all along. "The importance of this research is that it shows that the prohibitionist argument is ideological and political. It provides a huge stumbling block and strongly favours decriminalization," he said.

Lowman grew up in the red-light district of Sheffield, England and remembers a childhood living next door to "working women." "I got to know these women as just women, not as prostitutes, and couldn't believe the way they were treated just because of what they do," he said.

 

[Thais]

I think the study and the rape center spokeswoman looked at completely different segments within the industry.

The industry is not uniform at all, and perhaps it is time we looked at separate segments within it. The study, as far as I understand it, never aimed to represent the Prostitution population at large - its purpose was to explore off-street, high-end population only.

I know there a fair number of studies in England designed specifically for AMP/Sauna/massage workers. Many other studies that come to the most horrendous conclusions about the industry come almost exclusively from street worker samples.

Eventually, those should be added together to paint the whole picture. But personally, I am glad to see that researchers are beginning to admit that lack of uniformity. Then may be, they'd stop lumping all the policy advice into one "fit-all" recommendation. Oh, wishfull thinking...

 

[Thais]

Found education stats:

Some extent of University education - approximately 6,170,000 people out of 23,901,000 of population above 15, 2001 census.
That's roughly 26%. And another 6 million with college education. With 800,000 overlap between the two.
I wonder if the article really meant "University" or "University/college"?..
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/educ45.htm

But high percentage of educated SPs does make sense to me: I found escorting to be great when you are paying tuition or tuition debt, switching between careers, financing your own business, or supporting an interesting yet not lucrative career. Most women I know tend to be in that category - of course, my sample is biased.
Then you are only in it part-time (also avoids burn-out). I believe there is quite a number of inedependent/agency ladies who fit that description. As I said, a segment of the industry but a noticeble segment nonetheless.

 

[Curious Boy]

We have a habit of talking about sex as merely physical, and yet nothing has more soul. Sex takes us into a world of intense passions, sensual touch, exciting fantasies, many levels of meaning, and subtle emotions. It makes the imagination come alive with fantasy, reverie, and memory. Even if the sex is loveless, empty, or manipulative, still it has strong repercussions in the soul, and even bad sexual experiences leave lasting, haunting impressions.

Thomas Moore
The Soul of Sex

Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness at its worst
Give me a break, girl! You are doing it for money. Wanna be a saint? Do it for free! Would you?
If you wouldn't do it for free you have selfish motives.

Would you work for free? I worked for room & board, and the employer wants me back. I worked harder & longer than the salaried staff. I had my own bed, and a plate at the table. I had no money in my pockets, and no need for money for 6 months. If I had a unlimited line of credit, and someone/something taking care of my living expenses, I would look into doing more than what I am doing now.

Getting paid takes care of the body, but who takes care of your soul? When I read posts like these, I’m amazed and awed by Thais’ search for knowledge.

 

[Karlheinz]

I find it very interesting that you chose to bring up the idea of marriage being sacred. I am not married.. Are you? Without offending anyone, I personally don't buy into the marriage idea. If you do, don't assume everyone does. :

So if you don't buy into something it means you don't have to respect it, right?

Let's say, I don't buy into private property. I think it is unfair that some people are born with money, others have to work for peanuts, so to right a wrong, I rob a bank.

I am sure telling the judge I don't buy into private property will get me off.

What I am trying to say is: Be honest. You are doing this because it puts you in a privileged position and you would never be able to make this kind of money working elsewhere.

But please, oh, please, don't talk to me about doing a sacred work, because it only makes you sound ridiculous.