Behind the Scenes - The Sex Industry

Have enough negative images in your mind yet? Maybe a certain amount of personal discomfort? Perhaps even a slight feeling of hypocrisy, as you realize that you, like so many of us, watch porn or go to strip clubs or visit sex workers, while in your daytime life thinking of the people who so please you at night as social outcasts, as people who have fallen through the cracks, perhaps as subhuman. Even other sex workers sometimes separate themselves quite deliberately from the “lower” echelons: the high-class call girl doesn’t want to be equated with the street hooker.

It’s only natural, only cultural. It’s how the climate in which we live encourages us to think: sex workers are an essential component of a healthy economy, especially in a society rife with taboos about what we are permitted to enjoy.

But this column is here to challenge the notion that your favorite stripper is somehow different, and definitely inferior, to your doctor, your secretary ,the waitress at your neighborhood coffee shop. Your sister.

Sex work is real work, done by real people. It’s time to end the separation.

Every month in After Hours, I will interview a different person in the sex industry in an effort to reveal their very real lives, both inside and outside the business. We hope that you enjoy it, and that it also leaves you thinking.

This Month

Protecting the Sanctity of the Fourth Amendment: Sherri Williams v. the Alabama Sex Toy Ban

When this interview was being conducted, Sherri Williams had just recently completed an interview with a Berlin newspaper who was writing a piece on “shock value” as it outlined the stark differences between mentalities concerning sexuality from the U.S. and our European counterparts. “Here’s a woman who’s taken upon herself to go against the state because they banned sex toys; that’s so absurd and unheard of [to them],” said Williams. Certainly, any woman who’s ever felt the effects of the Rabbit would agree no matter the political climate of where they reside.

Phillips is not here to defend pinup art, though she does her fair share of fighting for its place in the world. She is the number-one seller of cheesecake in the nation and considers herself extremely lucky because she can make a good living doing something she loves. Phillips doesn’t consider risqué paintings of curvaceous females obscene, or even slightly pornographic. When confronted with the issue of objectifying the female form, she smiles and says that pinups are actually depictions of female power. This unassuming 60-year-old woman from Iowa is the grand dame of pi-up art; a historian; and, the keeper of the sacred power—a power possessed solely by women.

Don’t let the doctorate in human sexuality and Ph.D. in erotology fool you: It’s all about the art. Dr. Laura Henkel is not only an aficionado but a true connoisseur of art. (The erotic part was added for extra measure.) For those who’ve never taken an art appreciation course or have little tolerance for the pedestal art elicits from society, you can learn a thing or two from this unassuming erotic art appraiser. The common misconception about art is that it serves no purpose save to be appreciated by collectors and museum goers. Dr. Henkel, in her own way, would tell you otherwise.

On his business card, apart from the usual name, requisite numbers and email address, below ‘Paul Thomas’ (where the person’s title usually goes—in his case, director) is instead one word: icon. And like most eclectic emblems, we allow them their idiosyncrasies, such as Madonna’s obsession with Kabbalah, Andy Warhol’s child-like observations (which later became legendary), Britney Spears’ tendency to flash the paparazzi on days she goes commando and so on. Also typical of pop culture avatars is an I’d-rather-be-solitary-because-no-one-understands-me aura that generally pervades their beings that seem to only deepen with age.