A working girl (in the other sense of the word or apparently the equal of*)

Like all tales of politics, this could get long and boring.  Personally, I have spent my life being a tiny dot amongst big groups of people starting with my huge immediate and wider family and large church communities, various groups of girls: single sex school girls, working girls, groups of ladies (and mixed gender groups as well obviously) in various creative and other professional pursuits.

To understand the dynamics of these situations, I have had to become a keen observer of human nature, usually from the outside. In any situation, not just with working girls, I tend to have a bit of an aversion to active participation in group situations especially when I identify those who are desperately ambitious at all costs, and who are happy to employ dastardly means behind the scenes usually due to their obvious lack of natural gifts or aptitude, not to mention intelligence.  Jealousy happens.

As I said, I’m not necessarily talking about working girls – just take a look at our current political election campaigns and you can spot the fumblers and bumblers whose spin doctors are having to work overtime.

During my straight period when I was no longer a sex worker, I was BFFs with a serving politician who I mixed and mingled with socially and privately and holidayed with – I even attended a formal political ceremony as their guest once. I have also been friends with a former political speech writer (our friendship spans over three decades).  I wouldn’t say I know any great secrets, but I have heard a couple of interesting stories.  I would even say that there are a few parallels with actual political life and the sex work scene.

There are some who like to be, or who just happen to be by default, holders of information, as an indication of their power, to be oozed out to eager listeners or given in sometimes inaccurate dollops like a mother bird feeding her chirping babies worms, but with the odd stick or lead bullet amongst them.  I personally think there is no merit in having such a position, for this is not any real personal power.  As well as that, when mistakes are made or inaccuracies eventually get revealed, one tends to wonder, “who can you believe?”  One thing is certain, if there is doubt about this, there is nothing to be had as far as honest and trusting friendship goes.  If friendship is actually your thing.  Friendship versus gossip and “knowledge” – what to choose?

I found it interesting that a blogger all those weeks back described a politician as a good mate.  Just after the politician or the blogger had got our self-described victim the politician in the shit.  I would cackle loudly at the craziness and then gloat at the comeuppance, but then you see people have been made sad or stressed or have lost their livelihood, and whatever you feel about these people and whether or not they deserve it, we are all people with things in common, even if it’s only blood in our veins, and god, is this how we feel better for ourselves?  It’s a sad day for each of us personally when the main thing that amuses us is the downfall of others.  Leave that to the well-known shit-stirrers who are quite correct if they have ever wondered if their mates actually despise them.  I always thought schadenfreude should just be relegated to the fetish list, I hope it doesn’t become a common service on offer.

Every situation is different and I usually try and suss out the rules early: the ship girl scene was pretty violent but the rules were basic – don’t take anyone else’s tane (in Maori, it means man, we shipgirls used this word for client) or “roll” any tanes. (In other words, don’t steal from clients – yes, this was strictly enforced). Everything was sorted out via a physical fight, then forgotten. Sometimes girls would be fighting like men with each other then, a few days later, be bosom buddies again even though one or both might still have a black eye, bruised knuckles or a fracture, like a broken wrist.

At the Penthouse in Sydney, we girls were pretty united even though we mostly knew everyone’s private business and discussions under the guise of “concern” happened behind people’s backs all the time. There was no Facebook so we socialised in real ways, eg, by going out for dinner or to see bands. We would always get dressed to the nines and en masse we would certainly turn heads. Sometimes we would go to clubs and restaurants owned by clients who would kindly send over a round of drinks for us all or not charge us for our meals when it was time to leave. The rule was to be cool and look gorgeous, as this boosted the power of the group as a whole.  I can’t remember major bitching among us, it was more of an us (as a group) against the clients (as a group) situation and most definitely us against the law.

In London it was every working girl out for herself it seemed and no sharing of knowledge or secrets, even for the sake of safety. Possibly this was the national feeling, Thatcherism was most definitely alive and well. I heard from a working girl I kept in touch with, that by the 90s the beautiful girls from the east of Europe were saturating the London sex scene charging next to nothing and willing to do anything which forced a change of the dynamic.  I presume this was “us who speak English as a first language” versus them “gorgeous foreign working girls”.

Back in Sydney at Tudor Court there was definitely a divide between the girls on the night shift and the day shift. The night girls were a lot more glamourously turned out, seemed to live more exciting lives, and according to a day girl whose sister was a night girl, they mocked us day girls incessantly for our frumpiness and lack of big earnings compared to them. As well as that, it was a line-up system where we were all compared to each other in the cold light of day, and when one girl is chosen repeatedly over the others, girls’ pride is dented and resentments are formed. The same thing happens in the days after the elections for public office.  Some gloat while others lick their wounds and false congratulations are issued as sincerely as one can muster.

Sex work in the internet age is incredibly interesting where we all market ourselves with photos and text full of promises to set our brands. There is also a couple of online forums for networking and socialising.

There is still the old-fashioned real life behind the scenes networking of some working girls. I love to catch up with working girls in real life – what a fascinating, beautiful bunch of ladies I have met in my time.  I relate better in person – my intuition has been finely honed over the years and while I tend to be a glass half full kind of person who sees the best in people, regardless I am usually quick to ascertain motives and intentions and decide where to take any associations with a person from here.  I assume everyone else does the same.

Every working girl has her own story and different goals but we all have something that can never be removed: the tainting by the stain from having once been a working girl but also the power from the knowledge that we can be a working girl. Being a working girl offers real freedom but also threat.

And so it is that it is usually another working girl that will misuse that knowledge or threaten to. That’s why some bold working girls take that power back by “coming out” – they can choose to use their real names, show their faces in their advertising, reveal publicly to all they know that they are working girls or come out to their loved ones and just not give two hoots about others they know perhaps finding out. I’ve found the craziest of working girls, and the most paranoid are the ones who are truly leading double lives because they don’t have one single support person in their straight life who knows and supports what they are doing which gives them a bridge to safely cross over from one identity to the other.

Back when you could be arrested for being a working girl, I had a close friend, still a friend today in fact, who saw a letter dobbing her in to the IRD which was written by another “friend”. She saw the letter and recognised the handwriting because luckily a clerk at the IRD tipped her off, possibly in exchange for a sexual favour, and she was able to visit an accountant and get all her ducks in a row before the IRD came knocking.

In the internet age, some politicians have recently been potted with leaks which are easier to trace due to digital footprints. And so it is with working girls. We have forums aflame, rumours or suspicions (some which eventually get discredited) of text messages or other information screenshot and passed on, as well as emails and Private Messages forwarded with the original writer often being completely oblivious about the treachery. Offence is taken when one person doesn’t know another well enough to know if they can trust them, and accusations are flung like shit, some of which sticks a little.  Nobody really knows what the fuck happened, I sure as hell couldn’t possibly ever understand it.

Meanwhile on public webpages, there may be appearances of loyalty to one camp or other public do-gooding disguised as support towards people of one clique, while out of the public eye there is no actual support for others whatsoever. It’s all just fakery, a specialty of working girls, but not just working girls.

Things are normally resolved by one person getting wind of the potential shit they have caused and a new series of emails or private messages are fired off, usually an acceptable modus vivendi. Events are normally then quiet or the nastiness and subterfuge is more cleverly hidden until the next public row which is pounced on with glee.

If you’ve got this far and you’ve thought you have spotted a reference to yourself or someone you know among these words, you are wrong.  I am talking generally and not about any particular person or situation in the sex industry, even if an event not long ago sparked a thought or two about the irony of human nature and the complexity of friendships and associations.

The sound of silence can for some be too dull so sometimes an upset seems to have been deliberately caused and again the group’s collective energy is called into battle. It can take only a hint at something and a whole day can be consumed by some trying to get the inside knowledge on the crazy goings on.  Things can be implied and past misdeeds and good deeds used to justify opinions can be put on the digital table in full view for the entertainment of us all. Politics sure can be dirty.  Not to mention embarrassing.

But back to working girl life, I recently saw a survey which was a timely reminder of the unimportance of us working girls in the real world. We were ranked very low in a poll of occupations which can be trusted. No surprises there.

* Interestingly we were level with politicians, the biggest fakers of all. Oh, how can people be so cruel.