![]() A few comments really stuck with me, and they weren’t from either end of that spectrum. Frankly, I don’t think those commentators read the piece: they skimmed to see if it said “I’m happy being a sex worker” so they could tell me that my experience is so rare that I have no right to write about it, or that I’m ignoring the plight of trafficked women by writing about myself. RH Many of the people who responded to my first piece on Jezebel wrote that they connected with it, as a coming out story, as an experience of growing up in a radical family, as a difficult part of being a sex worker, but the loudest voices were the raging ones. OT Commentators seemed angry at you for writing from your personal experience, that of a white woman who has chosen prostitution, but isnt that the point of a personal essay? To write from your experience? Thoughts? Essentially, it holds all the elements that excite me as a writer, and also happens to be my job, a job that’s highly stigmatized and considered shameful, so how could I not write about it? It fascinates me from a personal and a conceptual angle it forces tricky questions about sex and feminism and labor and public space. There was never a question of whether I should write publicly about prostitution. When that series ended, I pitched the idea of an ongoing column on sex work to Jezebel, and I’m thrilled that they were into it. Then a friend asked me to write some pieces for a mainstream website on the subject, I did it, and I quickly became addicted to the idea of reaching a wide audience really, really fastsomething that doesn’t happen through self-publishing and small press. Until recently, I’d planned to take a break from writing about sex work because I felt like I was getting too comfortable, limiting the scope of my writing and neglecting other ideas and projects. My zine Mirror Tricks, about working as a prostitute, was also a slide show that I presented dozens of times around the country, and I’ve written critical essays on sex work, given talks about prostitutes’ health issues, etc. RH Prostitution has been my primary source of income for about eight years, and I’ve been writing about it for nearly as long. What made you decide to write publicly about it? OT You recently wrote a piece for Jezebel discussing prostitution. After a decade out of school, being self-employed has allowed me to start working toward a degree in a healthcare field without giving up writing and making art. It spares me the monotony of a full-time job. Making a living as I do allows me to wake up early and write or stay up late and draw. It’s a system I’d want to work outside of even if I wasn’t an artist. It’s shameful that we haven’t made any progress since then, that we’re expected to take our work home with us, that we have to work overtime to stretch minimum wage into something closer to a living wage. Robin Hustle The 40-hour work week was established in 1886. ![]() ![]() Our Town Artists tend to choose between working nine to five jobs and fitting in art where they can or putting together a hodgepodge of gigs in order to make time for their art.
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