Cautionary Words from a Brothel Survivor::but still a sex worker activist

Sitting in a motel head spinning from what just happened. I had just been kicked out of B’s brothel. While I was in my room with a customer, someone had opened my laptop and poured tabasco sauce all over the keyboard and trackball pad. Mostly the latter, which was good because only the spacebar is the most damaged. I ask the people in the kitchen if they had seen anything. They all acted dumbfounded. I go to the living room. Lisa gets up and starts to get angry for me. “who the fuck spilled tabasco on Passion’s computer?? That’s some SHADY ASS shit right there, you BITCHES.” She is moving through the house asking everyone for me.

The computer was open to the post page I was writing, entitled “DAY 7: military and 6th grade classroom detention.

I was cleaning my laptop and girls took turns getting things like paper towels and q tips and I asked ALL of them if they did this as they interacted with me. All were empathetic and helpful. I sat in my room shaking. I did not know what to feel. I was angry but just in shock. I called Scarlot Harlot, my whore mother in crisis moments and beyond. “So, you’re going to leave, right?” she said. I sighed and accepted this as the last straw. “Yes. I said. “I’m leaving tomorrow.” Start to make plans to exit. Call Sharon in Vegas and arrange for a place to stop on route back home to LA. While I am talking on the phone in my room, bar manager comes in seeming concerned. “what time do you think this happened. When was your computer in the kitchen?” she said. I put the person on hold. “between when I was in my date and 10pm. “I said emotional but not in any tears. I am making frantic arrangements to kick my [trouble making] subletters out early so I could return home.

15 minutes later the bar manager opens the door. “S was just here. She wound back the tape [of the camera in the kitchen] and you were the only one near your computer. No one was in kitchen but you during those times. So I get to ask you to leave. I get to watch you pack and make sure you return the remotes. I get to check you out and give you your money WITHOUT taking the 25% for being asked to leave.”

“Wait a second.” I am even more in shock. “You think I did this to my own computer?” I said.

“I’m not saying what I believe or don’t believe. I am just doing my job.” A TRUE HENCHMEN SPEAKS.

“wow. This whole house is fucking crazy. That’s fine. I was going to leave tomorrow anyway.” I say and start to head to the closet to slowly process what is happening and start to pack. My heart is pounding out of my chest in the way that it does when I am about to get into a fist fight, when I got robbed, when I got arrested by 3 male cops busting through a door…The adrenalyn was making my head spin and my body tremble.

I am now in a motel, unwinding by writing all of you “conscious sex workers” out there who were seduced by the charm of the seductive sales pitch of a manager disguised in feminist clothing, to SLAP YOURSELVES ACROSS THE FACE, because you don’t even have to be similar to Amanda or me to see that labor violations and militant management are not a good addition to intentions to adventure and prosper in sex work settings.

S asked me if I had ever had a pimp in her office, and I was thinking in my head,“Yeah, lots of mostly stripclub managers, but never someone like you who truly believes that they are the total opposite, but are exactly the same evil in a different outfit.” She then showed me photos of the other woman’s face all beat up to scare me out of being an “independent.”

“You wanna take customers to your house and see them on your own??” she said,” You wanna know what happened when B did that a customer damn near TOOK HER LIFE??” waving the photos at me.

The women here are sleep deprived and working around the clock for about $2000-$10,0000 a week for 130 hours of work (emotional, body movement control for 13 hours a day x 10) in 10 days. Most make about $2-3000, which means about $2-300/day. Can you make that much or more as an independent or even agency escort? Many can. In fact, many street workers can make more than that, but there are that come with it the increased risk of arrest and [different kinds of] violence. The legal brothels waive their legal status as their carrot so that you feel like you NEED them to make that money.

Now I know how WAGE BONDAGE (keeping wages until the week’s end to make sure you follow rules), light deprivation mixed together with FEAR conditioning and bodily control by restricting freedom of movement and REQUIRING movement at the sound of a loud FIRE ALARM like BELL every 20-40 minutes does to you. I too was still thinking of staying a few more days,making just a few more hundred in exchange for my freedom. But the tabasco incident happened, which was all the better but still really really dirty and stupid. Amanda’s window to her room opened onto a padlocked and gated “patio.” I read this and still I went. (Maybe we are two very different people with different boundaries..I’ve never worked with Amanda…in fact I don’t even know her that well!) I cleansed my mind to open, even after reading her blog, but still the same, if not worse of the nightmare ensued for me. This and even worse is going on in legal brothels all over Nevada, Australia and more.

I’ve had my period for several days while working there. Today I bled a little puddle on a customer and he wanted a damn refund. The Instead cups sometimes get tilted to spill when a penis is thrusting it. Oh well, he sees blood. He had already fucked me though! I usually tell fools like that to eat my bloody pussy or “Hey,surprise, female prostitutes bleed sometimes. Sorry to break the fantasy for you.” There ARE NO REFUNDS in prostitution! But management gave him a damn refund. This is where the ambiguity of charging for the hour not the sex act comes in handy. In that hour, you can give head or a hand job if you are bleeding and they don’t get recourse because you never promised any certain kind of sex. Well, that’s how I roll anyway. I don’t love all my clients, especially when it means I would have to compromise control over my boundaries during periods or not. In most sex work establishments with fucked up management, expect the customer to always be right. However, in the stripclub that I worked the longest at, working girl was always right. Bouncers would usually take out issues on drunken customers who exceeded a girl’s boundaries, this might seem like a good thing, but, bouncers can easily take this one out of control as well. But this practice, in general, meant that clients were always TRICKS at the end of any argument, and your pussy power was kept intact, in control and in the highest regard. This is not the set up for this brothel,and I get the feeling that most are built on a reputation of customer is always right, which doesn’t always stand in line with sex workers rights.

Another part of S’s lecture was about how “you will give that customer an $80 party and give him the best party of his life,(meaning you get $40 for fucking) and not complain about it because he might come back when he has more money and give you a $2000 party.” speaking of the girls who complained about a customer only having $80 in his wallet.

Aunt D called us all in to the kitchen and swore up and down that Bellas would never take your money for that kind of thing..we all bleed. She said she gave HALF of his money back because he would spread word to all his trucker friends, so she took money out of her own pocket to keep his mouth shut. But we will never take money from you girls for that..” When I was checked out they charged me $150 for bleeding on a customer. That was my 50%. They issued a refund from my half!! I didn’t argue as I left the office with my measily $600 for 7 days of what I deemed as emotional hell. (this was not even my expenses for getting licensed to be a card carring ho, gas money to get here or gas money to get back. My rent is due again on September 1st and my lawyer needs to get paid by the 5th. BUT, I am free. A sex worker activist brothel survivor. Getting abused by pimps or systems of abusive pimping does cause trauma in the same way that any other domestic violence or workplace violence would, especially if you have previous stuff to deal with. Melissa Farley has bits of truth in her very one sided view, except that it isn’t the sex work itself that was traumatizing, but the way that it was mandated to be done. Bella obviously does NOT understand the concept of sex worker rights. They tried to destroy my laptop, but I it didn’t stop me from writing THIS BLOG to the rest of cyberspace. She doesn’t know that I have successfully filed LABOR CLAIMS and WON against EVERY strip club that I have worked in. So this brothel shit is LEGAL. Great. That means I can get my money back for the sex work I did, and charge you for damaging my laptop and hold you accountable for the rest of your BULLSHIT. Management is ex cop and ex military. She used to dress up like a ho to ARREST guys and now she is literally wielding her power trip on the other side of the tracks in a little family owned brothel in nowhere, Nevada.

I am on my way home. I am not worried about money. It will find its way back to me. I have my freedom. I would take working illegally and getting arrested ANYDAY to being enslaved by bonded wages, (they keep your money til the end of each week, so they can DEDUCT heavy fines out of it as a threat) lockdown house which is like JAIL anyway just more time. I know that this brothel is not unique in the system of legalization and now I know that I am not cut out to work at another one, which I’m sure owners and brothel hobbyists will be more than happy that I plan to not try again. Amanda said that she will try another one, which is great, like I knew before, we are different workers and you, reader are also another person who may feel and experience differently. However, I hope that you can take a stand against abusive, extorting stripclub managers, escort agencies, brothel owners and recognize the difference between abusive pimp and sex work manager. Stand against debt or wage bondage and psychologically abusive work environments. Sex work does NOT ever have to be like this.

Alright drivers, 10-4 good buddy, I’m headin home. Back to LA. OVER AND OUT….

DAY 7: military and 6th grade classroom detention

Yesterday was the worst day so far. Another drill sergeant lecture which started at the beginning of our shift. “You WILL wear that same outfit everyday til it falls off your body,if that’s the outfit that made you the most money. And you will NOT complain when I or the bartenders give you these ’suggestions.’ After yesterday’s 2 hour lecture S found a weed roach on the patio outside and let us ALL have it. She was busy throwing fines all over the place and making examples of all the girls in front of the captive 6th grade detention classroom of 9 + 2 staff. It was horrible. She tried to give one girl a $500 fine for talking smack to another girl and she started crying and trying to defend herself. “If you don’t like it-you can pack your shit and get out!” she kept saying. “Don’t give me any of those tears, because I DON’T feel sorry for you, SUCK IT UP!” she said and then moved on to her next example. Apparently, I got mixed up into the whole thing because everyone was involved in this story of me letting some guy feel me up. When I asked the crying girl what “dirty hustling” in the kitchen the night before, somehow the story turned into that we were both in the kitchen talking smack about two of the other girls! She made sure everyone in the house knew that I was going to get a $200 fine for dirty hustling and I said,”Well, that’s my 3rd negotiation in a legal house ever, so if you feel good about taking my money then go for it, but I don’t agree with your accusation.” She asked why I was defending myself if I wasn’t guilty. I thought that was such an inane rebuttal, and repeated. “I have my period. Why would I want anyone to touch me down there?” The whole accusation was started by the house Playboy bunny breadwinner ratting on me for laying on my bed and letting some guy touch my THIGH during negotiation which is apparently unacceptable in this whorehouse because it is considered a start to your party, which makes it dirty hustling for some reason. You are not supposed to give anything away for free here, not show them your tits, let them touch your leg, NOTHING. Or else the other girls will see you during your negotiations and rat on you to make sure you get fined. This is why you have to keep your door open during these negotations. She repeated lots of things from yesterday’s lecture including the “If you think its so HORRIBLE here,then go try and work at another house and see if it’s better” bit.

“Did anyone call you up and ask you to come work here?”Aunt D said as she went around the room and asked people why they were here. For about 4-5 people they all repeated. “Because I need money.” “to feed my kids.” and was just fucking waiting for her to get to me so I could be a smart ass and say,”to see if doing it legal was better or not.”

We had a talk in her office afterwards. I found out that S has been in the military and had been one of those undercover decoy cops that bust the johns and ticket the working girls for smoking weed. I could NOT believe it. (I had a flashback of the decoy cop who arrested me. She was hanging up her slutty outfit in the closet while the other cop was questioning me). “You were a working girl cop while your mom was out here running the brothel?” I said. “did you do that to rebel against her?” “No,” she said,”My mom’s business needed the money, and those johns DON’T care whether or not they give those girls HERPES or AIDS or whatever!” Typical cop justification for arresting johns. She started to list off degrees that she had (law enforcement, military, nursing, etc, etc). and I had to stop her “Well, I have a MASTERS degree in education. I have taught kids of all ages K-12 for 3 years and I can tell you that the way that you are treating us IS negative and IS like children. We have nowhere to put all the negative energy that you have given us and then you want us to go out to the bar and SMILE for the customers?” “It’s just not empowering, you have two girls out there crying right now and I feel like this big,” I said indicating with my fingers how small I felt.”And I LOVE being a whore and I LOVE myself.” I said. She went on about how I was new to working in a house and that there was a big learning curve and I would get it. I told her that me and Amanda were very professional and very capable sex workers and we were experimenting with the legal model so that we could see if it was for us and honestly, I told her, it’s not looking like it truly is. “You wanna go back to working independent?”She said, “You wanna know what happens when you take a trick home to your house?” she said and showed me pictures of another girl who worked in the house who had gotten beat up by a client so bad that her eye almost fell out. “She can’t see at night now!” she explained her how much she loved this woman and that this woman loved her job too, but that this was the SAFE way of working. “It’s the best house there is, and I’ve worked at almost every house that there is.” said Playgirl. When S was trying to explain how Playgirl was conflicted about ratting on me because I was new, she said to my face,”Don’t worry, I would NEVER do you dirty.”

I hadn’t eaten a thing yet and it was already 2pm.

Playboy bunny was in the room while this conversation was happening because apparently she was bringing the two of us together because I had “confided” to her that I didn’t trust her because she ratted on me. S would always use PB as the model of the most professional brothel worker who never complained, always did her job and most importantly, made the house lots of money. She was gorgeous, definitely not bi, or even bi for pay and I did NOT trust her. She and the bartender made up this story about me to get me in trouble. I noticed that she never did any CB radio time. She was what Black hos with a pimp call the “bottom bitch” meaning she is #1. It was slowly coming together for me.

Finally this “private” meeting was over. I went to 1 of the 3 rooms we were allowed to be in in the house. I was starving. But, I was barely holding it together. Tears were on the verge of falling out of my eyes as I looked for the vegetarian groceries I had bought for myself and was cooking everyday. The 3 rooms were filled with other girls or customers. I heard one girl talking to S. “thanks for giving us that meeting, Sergeant S. Cause, you know, I am guilty of being ungrateful sometimes…” Oh man. That’s when I ducked into the pantry and let the emotions and negative energy wedged into my chest out-a little bit. Silently.

Suddenly from the closet I hear someone and Lisa talking about me. “She asked me for my number. She just was talking about the sex worker association with me, trying to get me to be a phlebotomist with them.” That’s all I heard and that was all that I needed to hear. Lisa is so loud mouthed, the secrets of the house are easily revealed by hanging earshot of her. For some reason,I thoguht it was Playgirl because I was now vilifying all her actions.

I was suddenly not sad anymore and “sucked it up” enough to feed myself and go back to the bar to make money. I looked outside the window at the beautiful clouds hanging over the Ruby mountain range and wished to the Universe that I could be outside sitting in the sunlight instead of this hellhole.