Date posted:
This blog post was originally posted on Patreon on 22 January, 2025.
I am fortunate to have never been roofless, but when I moved to Australia from New Zealand, the tenure of my living arrangements were short and unextendable. I was having to move every few days or weeks, and before that, I was sharing a bungalow with a few people. When I came out to the couple I was sharing the house with, however, I lost access to space for social relations. I was not aware at the time, but this condition meets the definition of homelessness (and so do living arrangements with short or non-extendable tenure).1 The judgmental sentiment came from the woman, who said, "your friends are weird".
I have been fortunate in Australia that my housemates have been understanding of my choice to engage in selling sex. I made the decision to start when I was faced with the predicament of co-habiting with an abusive ex-partner, or being homeless. I was not financially independent at the time. My then partner had encouraged me to stop working three jobs and focus on studying, as I was already doing more than a fulltime course-load to finish my degree as soon as possible. I did not have the mental fortitude to stay in temporary housing, and I did not think I could survive another moment living with my ex. When I finally reached out to a madam at a small agency, I had been staying with a friend further up the coast and commuting over two hours a day to attend classes at university. It hurt me more to think about asking my mother for financial help, because she had no income after dedicating her youth to domestic work at home. Of course, she had prepared for retirement and had deposits at the bank, but I told myself that that money is hers fully to use, and that I do not want to use or inherit it. My father had been estranged for many years, and that burnt bridge was not one I wanted to cross.
After working for agencies pre-COVID, and working independently after the COVID lock downs, friends from home and new friends in Australia helped me settle in Sydney. When Korea and other countries opened their borders again, I was able to see my family again in person. Selling sex gave me financial freedom, but everything comes at a price. I learned to know 'my place'.
During my sojourn overseas, I visited the UK during the mourning period following the late Queen's passing, mainly to meet friends who had moved for work. A client happened to invite me the same month to attend a charity dinner in Knightsbridge (to be clear, we did not have any kind of sex). We were sat at a table with other guests neither of us knew. I think I was the only student at the table, and a group of executives sitting across the table asked me what I would like to do in the future. When I gave my cover story of a made-up dream to work in finance, they made lighthearted jokes about their dislike of ISDA agreements (a basic standardised document for over-the-counter derivatives transactions). One took the joke further, and said that he had written a clause in an employment agreement that the employee was to provide blowjobs during their lunch break. He asked me if this was enforceable. And if I were not conscious that I should be a respectful guest and not damage my client's opportunities to network, I would not have held my tongue. I did my best to enjoy the dinner, using my best table manners. My face was hot, but I could say nothing back. Practice for the real world, I'll be an easy-going Millennial in this labour market, I guess.
I over-corrected for a long time after that dinner, trying my best to signal and prove my value. Now, I no longer have any desire of persuading anyone of anything. Invited to comfortable apartments overlooking some of the biggest ports in the world, I do not try to hide myself. I am open with my clients: that I often visited small ports as a child growing up in New Zealand; that my father worked in the fishing industry, one of the most exploitative industries; that I was a beneficiary of public education for all but the one year at elementary school before I moved to New Zealand. The respect that clients have treated me with was not a reflection of my value, but of their own dignity.
Ironically, being fortunate to have have been treated with respect in the sex trade was the reason that I did not have license to advocate for sex work in the eyes of many. To some abolitionists, who advocate for the asymmetrical criminalisation of the sex trade, criminalising the buyer of sex, proponents of full decriminalisation are seen as lobbying for financial gain.2 Such willful ignorance of the harms asymmetrical criminalisation is woefully concerning. In Norway, the police target the women who sell sex instead of the buyers in an effort to implement partial criminalisation, which purports to reduce demand. The police compel landlords to evict tenants immediately who are known to engage in the sex trade.3 How does driving someone out of her home overnight make her less vulnerable to abuse?
Legal purchase of sex does not equate to normalising sexual abuse. The High Court of Australia has expressed the view that absence of consent is not a necessary element of offences of extreme abuse such as trafficking.4 To say that advocating for consensual sex work perpetuates extreme abuses in the sex industry is a non sequitur, i.e. it is not logical. Just because it is not possible to consent to extreme abuse, it does not mean consensual sex work cannot be possible. When frontline sex workers and advocates say that "sex work is work", I think what we mean is that decriminalisation of sex work is not a driver of sexual exploitation. It allows workers to negotiate safely with clients, and clients are not allowed to renege on agreements giving their criminality as an excuse. Legal purchase of sex does not equate to normalising sexual abuse. Legalising the purchase reinforces the seller's rights. Demonising demand only serves as a red herring.
Silencing the very people who are harmed by abolitionist policy is not helpful, especially when the main drivers of labour and sexual exploitation are the existing economic and social precarity workers face in the labour market and in informal work such as domestic work. In my case, my father was not paid some six figures before he decided to finally retire: he did not want to keep being compelled to return to work on the empty promise of payment. Such conduct has been accepted as forced labour in many jurisdictions. I am grateful that the amount unpaid is not a lot in the grand scheme of things. We were able to live on rental income. But because my father was still quite attached to money he was owed, the stress of his litigation led to the dissolution of my parents' marriage. To divide their matrimonial property, they sold the rental properties in the fiscal recession, and as my mother did not reinvest the cash as the market was not great at the time, asking her for financial help is not something I have been willing to do.
When I started selling sex, I was exercising agency given limited options. I have continued to sell sex happily. Telling someone not to sell sex is tonedeaf, especially when the labour market has been weak and informal work is likely to only exacerbate financial anxieties.
I still read of New Zealand Members of Parliament accepting donations from the fisheries industry who lobby for less oversight, from NZD$2000 for individual members,5 to five figures for parties.6 I am not alleging there is any actual conflict. But if politicians can work with perceived conflict by being transparent, why can the worker not? I am not expressing disdain for the country I have enjoyed many freedoms, including the capacity to engage in the sex trade in safe conditions. And I do not disavow New Zealand as a place I called home. Exploitation happens globally. Korea, where I come from, is also a destination state for migrant workers from the Global South. All States are taking some measures to protect workers given the political reality to compete for their economic interests, and in a global economy, cheap labour will continue to be sourced from poorer states, with less favourable labour conditions. While I think it is important to highlight the extreme abuses which occur using frameworks which reinforce existing laws against exploitation, sensationalising the sale of sex and the demand for it does very little to help.
I thought that having a formal job might give me the license to finally comment on how this harms people who choose to engage in sex work. But looking back, I was not perpetuating harm. I have never supported the exploitation of a third party, or accepted the normalisation of abuse. And I wish to continue to advocate for decriminalisation in all states and territories, because I will never forgive the abolitionists who exacerbate the harms against the same people they purport to help.
Citations:
1 Australian Bureau of Statistics, Information Paper – A statistical definition of homelessness 4922.0, ABS, 2012.
2 UN Human Rights Council, 'Q&A: UN Expert Reem Alsalem Calls Out Prostitution as a "System of Violence" Against Women' (Youtube, 24 June 2024) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ROBOAZsstc&ab_channel=UNHumanRightsCouncil> at 19:30.
3 Amnesty International, 'The Human Cost of Crushing the Market' (2016).
4 The Queen v Tang [2008] HCA 39. This case was in Victoria when sex work was legalised, not decriminalised.
5 Laura Walters, 'NZ fisheries donations laid bare', Newsroom, (online, 23 February 2024) <https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/02/23/nz-first-fisheries-donations-laid-bare/>.
6 Guyon Espiner and Kate Newton, 'Concerns over Secret Fisheries Donations to NZ First Foundation', Radio New Zealand, (online, 25 February 2020) <https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/410299/concerns-over-secret-fisheries-donations-to-nz-first-foundation>
Featured image: Wharariki beach, a favourite walk not far from the port town of Nelson, New Zealand.
