Hooker Hierarchies

[jossophie]

I'm trying to think of an article topic for the next ProVision (Scarlet Alliance magazine).

The theme is 'phobia and discrimination' so the usual track to go down is how sex workers are discriminated against by the wider community etc.  I'll probably write something about discrimination of legal sex workers in Queensland - they've got legal

Comments

[jossophie]

Yes, I've studied anthropology and the main theory there is that all cultures are ethnocentric - meaning they think the way they do stuff and their moral codes are the only way to go, and the way 'other groups' think and behave is just sub-human.

I've come to accept that humans do define themselves as members of groups, and in order to belong to a group you have to have people that don't belong, and other groups that you don't belong to.

It's the concept of 'the other'. There is always 'the other', those that are not like us, those that are beyond the pale.

I just like to focus on those things that make us similar, more so than those things that make us different.

[jossophie]

Thank you, I've gone all modest now... actually I suppose I've been in the position of having to think a lot about all this stuff because I've been a sex worker, drug addict (hence belong to two stigmatised categories) and also studied and taught subjects on sex, gender and sexuality at uni.

Do you think that you have a naturally open perspective about this stuff or have you acquired it through your work?

I would imagine that doing phone-sex (which I've never done, though I've had to deal with plenty of fuckwits on the phone who were trying to get a freebie session), you'd come to understand the extremes and diversities of people's sexual fantasies pretty quickly but because of the phone barrier it would be easier to write them all off as weirdos - 'the other' - for longer.

I was thinking the other day about you when I saw the Kylie Minogue video of "Confide in Me" - have you seen that? It's like a phone-sex theme, somewhat European in style, but totally visual (such a contradiction really).