LD: I think this is one of the most common questions that sex workers get asked because our industry seems so underground, secretive and shady. People think, ‘however did she get lured into that?’ which is a question that assumes we are naive, impressionable victims! The truth is that the sex industry is all around us, in your condo building, on your computer, in the bedside drawer. Some of it is seen as legitimate work, some of it not, and because some of it is so taboo and criminalized people do get into sex work in unexpected ways—some good, some bad.
In my case, a good friend who saw I was struggling to pay school debts told me that she had started working selling blowjobs on Craigslist and that it was fun and easy. She thought I had the qualities to succeed in the work—I was interested in sex and sexuality, I had the capacity to separate love and sex, I was sex-positive and polyamorous—all characteristics that I think helped me first conceptualize how I wanted to have sex for money in a way that felt empowering and exciting to me.
Of course many sex workers don’t have those characteristics, or that experience, but those ways were what brought me to the work. So while I was in university I started placing ads on Craigslist one or two nights a month and paid my bills that way. It turned out that sex work inspired me way more than the work I was doing in university, so I eventually made the shift into full-time sex work. I have been a full-time sex worker for 2.5 years now.
LD: Right now I work as an independent kinky escort, so I do some BDSM work while also providing “full service” which is our industry lingo for penetrative vaginal sex. I offer other services as well. I have worked in brothels in Australia as a contract worker, which was a fantastic way to get lots of experience, meet lots of other workers, and also learn the ropes of working with clients without also having to learn and do all the administration work of running your own sex work business. The administrative work takes up a lot of my time now. I have been developing my lust and skills in BDSM activities but it remains to be seen what directions my sex work is going to take me—and I like how it takes me in unexpected directions.
JP: What are some of the things you like and dislike about work?
LD: I really like how unexpected my work is. I love knocking on a door and wondering who the man or woman is who will open it. I love the variety of people I meet and how vast the field of sexuality is. Also I love working with actual people’s bodies—touching and stroking and hitting and kissing. Working one-on-one with a lover’s body is really transformative and intimate for me. I love the intimacy of my work, but sometimes that aspect of it really burns me out. I work hard to be as open as possible with my clients, to accept them so deeply and give myself to them, and sometimes after I close the door behind them my heart has a little flare-out. I have to remind myself that it was a part-time fantasy and I have ways to return myself to myself, get my skin back so to speak. I think my compassion and open mind are what make me a great sex worker, but like any caring profession, it means you can burn out faster. The good thing about the sex work I do is that I get paid well for this intimate work, so when I need a break I can take one to rejuvenate and look after myself. That’s really important.
What I dislike the most about sex work is the way it is so isolating. I usually work alone in quiet rooms, doing things that everyday people don’t want to talk about, and I offer my clients discretion and privacy. When you couple that reality with the whorephobia that you encounter in everyday life, you can really feel alone in remembering that your sex work is valuable, ubiquitious, and worthy of respect. This whorephobia is also what makes you more susceptible to violence. I try to counter that by participating in sex worker community, working with other sex workers in sessions, and by being very open about what I do when it feels safe to me to disclose that information.
JP: What improvements can be made to the industry as a whole?
LD: From the community work I do at Maggie’s Toronto (I am a board member there) and in the workshops I give and the arts work I do on issues for sex workers, I would say that decriminalization of our work is a major step towards building more open community support and also towards more police accountability and reducing stigma against sex workers. I see how sex workers are very susceptible to violence and to getting ripped off, and I don’t just mean by clients but especially by police. With decriminalization we could work more openly and together, supporting each other and building independent businesses that benefit from tax and business law, not just hide from them. And while decriminalization would be a major step, it’s not a one-note solution. I think that sex workers come from all parts of life and need justice not just as sex workers, but as Indigenous people, poor people, people of colour, trans* people, women, migrant people, people with disabilities, queer people. We are fighting for justice in housing, immigration, sovereignty, access to social services, body autonomy, financial justice, reproductive rights—all of these struggles need to be understood as sex workers struggles, and other groups need to think hard on how sex workers are likewise part of their struggles and communities. It’s called community building, and only when sex workers are included in our notion of community will the decriminalization of sex work really benefit those who need it most.
LD: I feel most unsafe not in the room with a client, but in social environments where people make jokes about dead hookers. I feel unsafe when people tell me they feel sorry for me, because the next step is always that they will try to rescue me or save me in ways that completely deny my experience. I feel unsafe when people assume I have a disease that I brought upon myself and won’t offer me non-judgemental treatment options or kiss or hug me. I feel unsafe when people assume that the violence and danger in my life only comes from clients when my experiences of assault and boundary-crossing have primarily been with intimate partners.
Mostly I feel unsafe when I can feel that people don’t respect me, when they think my work and life is less valuable than other professionals, and this feeling can come from clients, yes, but also from doctors, bank tellers, social service providers, therapists, lovers, friends and family.
I stay safe by remembering I have a right to safety, the respect of others, and by talking openly about the challenges I face in being a sex worker. I think it’s important to note that not all workers can be out like that, and some are outed against their will. I have some risks in being out to most people in my life but the benefits have also been so amazing—so many people share their advice and stories with me. I honour and love the stories I have been given access to, and I am so careful with them. I make videos and offer workshops on sex work topics to other sex workers and to the general public and I am on the board of Maggie’s Toronto, a local sex worker organization. These are things that make me feel strong in who I am, and that help me feel safe by working with others to provide safety and a long-term vision of sex worker rights and self-determination.
LD: I anticipate this legal challenge going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Legal challenges are costly and long-term, and it is unfortunate that the resources of the sex work activist community are so focused on a legal challenge because the gains are so few and far between and often are symbolic more than anything. But we do need symbols and hope for the long-term future, and I am so proud of SPOC and all the sex worker groups who are working so hard on the legal challenge. It’s the fault of the Canadian federal government that we are so focused on a legal challenge as a way to make change, for they have repeatedly ignored the recommendations of their own research on how to decriminalize the sex industry to make it safer for everyone involved. Prostitution is a topic that no politician wants to touch, and their inaction is directly responsible for the deaths of many sex workers, especially Aboriginal sex workers. While this long-term legal challenge is happening, it is becoming en vogue to support a new form of legislation called the Nordic or Swedish model, which decriminalizes those working in the sex trade but continues to criminalize clients. Most sex workers I know do not support this model, which keeps the industry underground and drives away clients who are more risk-sensitive. We want clients who have our safety in mind, not ones who will risk their safety and ours. Research from Sweden by sex workers shows that this model isn’t working and yet it is being proposed as a model for Canada. Also, people often confuse human trafficking and consensual sex work and this confusion is deliberately sowed with Harper’s new crime bills that target sex working people, especially migrant workers.
I think the legal challenge will grind its way through the courts while legislators push for indirect new models of regulating sex work that will criminalize us, our communities, and our clients. I’m not that hopeful for positive legislative change but I am hopeful for the ingenuity of sex workers in staying safe and supporting each other no matter what is happening in the courts.
JP: What other work do you do, or hobbies do you have outside of being Lusty Day?
JP: Would you consider doing cam, video or other types of sex work?
LD: I have never worked on cam, doing phone sex or porn, in dungeons, or dancing… I am very happy in my niche and it would take a lot to pull me away from it. I don’t really love having myself photographed or filmed so lots of types of sex work feel uninteresting to me for that reason. I really love the one-on-one intimacy of escorting so I am very comfortable with what I am doing right now.
JP: What are your plans for the future, in both work and your personal life?
LD: I am not much of a long-term planner, but I do have a few dreams! In terms of my sex work, I would love to build a co-operative workspace with other sex workers and have it be a model for the world of what ethical and consensual sex-working business could be that is open to so many types of sex and sexuality and that is a groundbreaking place for new kinds of intimacy and connection.
Outside of sex work, in the future I would love to build an outdoor trekking organization that builds our survival skills as queers, people with disabilities, sex workers, community workers. I see it as a post-apocalyptic training ground that equally values different community-building skills, and it’s very much inspired by transformative science fiction by writers like Octavia Butler. I am inspired by the land and I respect those elders who have come before, especially those Indigenous peoples on whose stolen land I work and live on, and I want to make sure it is here for the generations of people yet to be born.
