On the first day I overheard another student asking the course coordinator if he thought she should come out as a sex worker (he advised her not to because it would make her seem unprofessional). So she and I get to make eye contact with each other in the teeth-gritting moments and it really helps. We also get to take it in turns defending sex workers so we share the burden of being the crazy sex worker rights woman.
Thanks for this article! xxxx

My Dom work was some of the most rewarding work I have had, and I wouldn’t trade my experience for something else. I just wish my school was a safe place to bring it up.

Hearing other students talk about sex workers as though there were none in the room was really annoying at times. I can’t believe how many people don’t realize that sex workers go to university, and even go on to do PhDs. This attitude was prevalent among professors as well. One time I went in to talk to a professor about a paper we had to write on Marx, capitalism, labour, and that sort of thing, and during the course of the discussiom he made a remark about how awful it was to learn that some university students in England were putting themselves through school by “prostituting themselves.” He had just read some news story about it earlier in the week. I found the remark insensitive for so many reasons, not the least of which was that it didn’t even occur to him that I might myself be one of these pitiable creatures he had just read about in the newspaper.

“Real live prostitute” indeed!

Thanks !!