On Mayday 2002, at 5pm on Old Compton Street in Soho, the International Union Of Sex Workers (IUSW) have called an action in support of workers in the sex industry. We talked to an activist from the IUSW to find out what's it all about:
Question: What is the sex industry? What is a sex worker?
Response: The sex industry is a huge global multi-million dollar / euro industry. Some of the big businesses are international multinationals. There are many different sectors in the sex industry. A sex worker is somebody who uses their body or sexuality for an economic gain, usually for money, but not always simply money. This can take many forms, from prostitution, to striptease, to lap dancing, sex phone, modelling, pornographic acting, cyber modelling. Because our definition of sex worker is somebody that use their body for economic gain, for us it includes people who might not usually be considered as sex workers, but if they consider what they do to be sex work, then they are welcome in our union. For example, people who take on the role of housewife. I'm not saying all housewives are sex workers, but sometimes they feel like they are sex workers because they feel they are having sex for an economical gain, to maintain domestic stability etc., so in this sense they are sex workers. One of the ways to develop your understanding of sex work and the need for sex workers rights is to ask yourself, have you ever had sex for economic gain? I think it is accurate to say that most people have done it at some time to keep the peace with someone you economically depend on, to maintain a relationship etc.
Question: From what you've said about International Sex Workers Union (ISWU), it sounds like it has a different structure than conventional British Trade Unions, which tend to based on people working for the same employer or in same type of job. Does the ISWU try to cross occupational boundaries in the way it organises?
Response: Yes, there are two reasons for that. Firstly, although the industry has many different sectors, ultimately it is one industry in that we are all either selling sex or fantasies of sex. One thing all sex workers experience is stigmatisation, the feeling that you are working in an underground, illicit industry. The other reason is that together we are stronger. There is no point having a separate union for prostitutes, a union for strippers and a union for phone sex operators, because we would then be different small groups, we can do much more if we organise together. We are aware that the realities are different in different sectors and we vary our actions, campaigns etc. according to the circumstance of each sector. But we will be a lot stronger if we build on our common identity as sex workers.
Question: So how did the IUSW come about?
Response: The Internal Union of Sex Workers emerged two years ago, March 2000. Speaking for myself, I was working for a sex phoneline. Although I liked my job, and did not feel I had been forced into it, I felt we were being economically exploited in that our boss makes millions out of his company and we're paid just a few pounds an hour. I realise that there was no union I could go to for support, certainly there was no relevant branch. After talking with other sex workers, other groups and supporters, we thought we needed to create an organisation to campaign for our labour rights. We heard that there were a group of prostitutes being evicted from their flat in Soho and in protest they were going on strike. The strike was being called by the English Collective of Prostitutes and we thought although we are completely independent of the English Collective of Prostitutes and our groups have different agendas, we though that this was a great action and we wanted to support it. So we organised a carnival in Soho, because not so many people knew that there was going to be a prostitutes strike. We wanted to make people aware of it and to think about the issues. So we invited a samba band, the Barking Bateria, and we marched through the streets of Soho on the evening of International Women's Day, the day of the strike and it was brilliant, because it was good opportunity to celebrate what it is to be sex workers. Although the action was firstly in support of the strike, a strike being when you are complaining about something, these sex workers were very angry about being evicted, but at the same time, it had a positive side. It was also a cultural celebration. We all came out on the streets in our beautiful costumes. The samba band, had lots of men as well as women in it, and most men came dressed as women. So it was a fun celebration, and that's very important - because it's important that sex workers feel pride in themselves, and pride in what they do. Because it's such a stigmatised industry and work , it's easy for people to loose their self-esteem, to feel ashamed and to live secretive lives. So it's very important to come out and say No! I'm proud, I'm beautiful, I'm sexy and I am not ashamed of what I'm doing.
Question: So Why an Action On Mayday 2002?
Response: On Mayday 2002, two years after our first action, we are again making an action in Soho. This time with Rhythms of Resistance samba band. For me, the most important thing about our carnival is the cultural celebration of our Pride. I'm using the word Pride in the sense that it's being used by the gay rights movement. I think there are lots of common things between the gay rights movement and the sex workers rights movement - we've been through similar steps, though of course the gay rights movement is more developed , so we can look at it. Pride is a concept mobilised in the gay rights movement, and for us too it so important. If we don't feel pride in what we do, there's no way we are going to feel that we can establish our rights. It's a key characteristic of the sex industry, that despite being absolutely huge and global and everywhere, and it's being everywhere for a very long time, but at the same time it's hidden, it's kept underground, a public secret. Society takes a stance of disapproval and won't accept that it exists. That is why it's important to BRING IT UP! On Mayday 2002 we will be saying - Here we are! We are a huge group of sex workers and supporters, and we're doing a street party, and we're celebrating our beings, our solidarity, our work and our identity.
Question: Admittedly, whist the gay rights movement did historically lead to a decriminalisation of gay sex, and it has made it possible for some to people to publicly own and be comfortable in gay identities. The spaces it opened up rapidly became commercialised and changed from being community based initiatives to being run by gay entrepreneurs, who basically sell us a packaged consumer life style. Queer activist are questioning why we should feel pride in identifying with this mind-numbing consumerism, and with our work - working hard, so we can go out clubbing, get the right designer drugs, designer clothes etc. So whilst affirmation is definitely important and is a step on the spiral, don't you also come round to a point where you've got to say - Well, there's also lots of fucked up things about the way we are?
Response: I know what you mean, but is that is why our collective is organised as a union. Obviously the trade unions movement has become very much conservative, but in principle it is revolutionary for us to organise ourselves as workers in a union. The aim of the International Union of sex workers is for sex workers to take over control of the sex industry. We want to claim the power back and overthrow the half dozen men who own the sex industry. The people who use their own bodies and sexuality to live, those are the ones who should have control over the industry and it's profits. In that sense we see our project as revolutionary. As for the comparison with the gay rights movement, I think it 's a question of how we do it. Which is why in addressing more specific questions about the sex industry, for example prostitution, we are we are calling decriminalisation of prostitution, which is different from legalisation. The Mayday carnival will be a good opportunity to leaflet and to make people aware of these kind of things. Many people think that prostitution is illegal. It's not, though many of the activities associated are illegal. Removing these penalties will mean that consenting adults can sex sexual services if they choose to do so. We think people should have this right, but we do not intend that we have the sort of supermarket brothels, like in Nevada or Germany, where the sex industry has been legalised on capitalist terms, where the state or a few rich business men control all the business. That's not what we want.
Question: Some people believe that there is something inherently exploitative and wrong about selling your sex or sexuality, that it is qualitatively different from selling your labour in a factory. They think that we should not struggle for better conditions in the sex industry but instead we should be trying to shut it down. What is your response to this?
Response: There are many answers to this point of view. I don't think you can effectively argue that it is different from selling your body in any other way. There are many jobs, well respected in this society, where you sell something very personal of yourself. If you work in a factory, you are selling your body, but you work from 9 to 5, then you go home and you don't have to think about it anymore. But I am amazed by professions like childcare, which is something we see as really positive, very good, with a respectable status. Society says that a mother's love is sacred - so how can you drop off your child, leave it to a another man or woman to take care of them during the day and then come back and remove the child. I'm talking about this because my mom worked in a kindergarten. Children used to stay in the kindergarten for about 2 or 3 years and for these years my mom and the other women who worked there would develop a relationship with the child. They would be loving these children for two years and then they were gone. People think you should only have sex for love or because you want to, while sex workers are seen as bad because they take the money and never see the client again, unless it is a regular. But it's the same if your psychologist or a doctor, you are dealing with situations that are very personal, very intimate , and you have to make a separation between that and your personal life or whatever, because you can't always be thinking about other people's problems. In that respect, it is the same with sex workers, who are giving themselves , their subjectivity, in their work. More and more in the world today, people are using their sexuality as way of affirming their identities, of finding their identities and of challenging the roles traditionally imposed on them. The sex industry is portrayed as the world of the bad girls, the bad people, when actually it is the world in which people dare and have the courage to live their sexuality to the full. And this is another way of answering the question; is there something inherently wrong with it? Lots of men work in the industry, but it's traditionally a women's industry. Women until recently were extremely sexually repressed and weren't even supposed to have a sexual drive. So those who chose to come into the industry were revolutionary in challenging these stigmas. There has been this moral division between the good girls and the bad girls, and there is great stigma attached to the sex industry, but this stigma also crosses boundaries. So every woman in this society has to censor herself, because she can be called a sex worker, at anytime she can be called a whore. If she dresses in a certain way, if she behaves in a certain way, she will be called a slut or a whore. So for woman who actually say, well, yes I'm going to be a whore, I'm going to be a prostitute, it can be very liberating.
Question: But doesn't the sex industry, in pornography for example, simply mass produce images of roles of women and mean that are very stereotypical? Through this process it educates and socialises people to these roles. Is that liberation or social control?
Response: Well, pornography is a huge genre, covering film, literature etc., so it's difficult to generalise. I think you can find anything you want to find in pornography and that what I like about it. I look at a magazine for women, that you find in any newsagent, and I see only really slim women, one fashion, one type of body. But if you look at pornographic magazines you see all kinds of bodies, all kinds of fashions, fetishes and sexual orientations, and that's what I like about it. Obviously it's not perfect, a lot of porn is really bad quality and really boring and why? Well, it's an underground industry and if you are a talented photographer, film director or writer, even if you have a curiosity and want to explore sexuality, you will try to go to a more recognised and acceptable industry or genre. If we change the industry, if we improve the conditions for those who work in it, we are also going to change clean it. It won't be so attractive for criminals. At the moment the sex industry is so attractive to criminals because it is so underground and you can make lots of money in a quick time. If it's decriminalised and has good conditions, then it's not so attractive for them, at the same time, it will become more attractive for people who want to genuinely do something good.
Question: The union's name is the International Union of Sex Workers. How does the union relate to the international aspect of the sex industry and of the people who work in it?
Response: Well, the industry is global, there is a sex industry in every country. It is a characteristic of the industry that people tend to move a lot. I think recently people have become very confused about the issues of trafficking in women. Although this issue is worrying, it has to some extent, the actual size of the problem has been exaggerated. People don't realise that this is an industry where people move about and it has always being like that. Because the big businesses are multinational, if we sex workers are going to get organised and take control, we have to get organised at an international level as well. When we started we were London based, and we still are, but now we have many links to other sex worker organisations internationally. It is a way to be strong.
Question: You mention the prevalence and currency of the image of trafficking in women in relation to the sex industry. There is a lot of interest in this subject and for many people it sums up what the sex industry is about, a form of super exploitation, effectively a form of slave trade, don't you think?
Response: That's a very superficial look at it. What I want people to realise is that there are all kinds of people working in the sex industry. Many of us choose to do so and we are not completely happy with the condition under which we work. That's why we need to organise and need other people's support. I think many people outside the industry are reluctant to support our organisation or our action because they feel they would be supporting something exploitative. But the call is coming from us, from sex workers ourselves. We are saying most of us haven't being forced to work in this industry, well maybe we have been forced by poverty, by unemployment, by not having other alternatives. But please don't take away your support because of that. It is exactly because we work in a very tough industry that we need support. We need to organise, we need a strong union, and we need to take control of the industry or at least gain some of the control. Be able to work on our own terms. Groups like Queeruption or the Sexual Freedom Coalition have done a lot in highlighting the issues and the need for sexual freedom. And that's what we do as well, our work is about that. There's a great link and why we should be working together and why we should be supporting each other.
Question: Final question, how would like people to manifest their support around the mayday carnival? What would you like to happen?
Response: I would like many people to come to the carnival in solidarity with sex worker's rights. To me., it doesn't really matter where they stand in relation to sex work. Some people may think that everyone should have the right to sell their sexuality should they choose to do so, other people think there's something inherently wrong in that. But I think everyone should be together in supporting sex workers rights. While we're doing it, while there is a sex industry, let's have good conditions and safe conditions, and that's what we're about. In my ideal society you wouldn't be selling anything , you'd be doing everything for fun or love, including sex but to get there we need to engage with the situations we find ourselves in at the present.. I hope for sex workers who come to the Mayday Carnival, that they will enjoy themselves a lot. That they will feel that they have lots of people supporting them and that they will feel pride in themselves, rather than feeling ashamed and that they are like second class citizens and that they cannot talk about what they are doing and are constantly been judged. So it would be great to have an environment , where we are free to talk about it, we don't feel judge but instead are celebrating ourselves with other people. For those who come who do not work in the industry, I hope they will come to understand our point of view. Why we work in the industry, why it can be so much fun, so glamorous, so good and sexy. I think it will be a good opportunity to do some educational work around things like the laws on prostitution. Hopefully people will be a bit more clearer about how the law is at the moment in this country and how it is unfair for us. How it makes us vulnerable to exploitation and to all the bad things we were talking about before So hopefully people will understand how important it is to change the law.