Skirting the shadows

Surprisingly, a growing number of clients are women. They can be hard to read, but it’s the odd man who is real trouble — Nancy and her staff have worked with the RNC on guidelines of how to handle, for example, stalkers bent on discovering a masseuse’s home address.

ROCK PAPER SEX: THE OLDEST PROFESSION IN CANADA’S OLDEST CITY BY KERRI CULL BREAKWATER BOOKS $19.95 230 PAGES

For author Kerri Cull, it started with CBC story from October 2014, when a “red alert” was issued to sex workers in the city after an assault in a hotel. It was a shocking piece but, Cull felt, soon faded from public attention. But she kept thinking about it, and wondering about those sex workers. Where were their voices in a news item that attained national coverage?

There are lots of reasons sex workers don’t speak publicly about what they do. The profession is stigmatized. Its practitioners are stereotyped as drug-addicted prey. And in this local environment there’s the real possibility of outing themselves as a neighbour, co-worker, or even a relative. But Cull thought their lack of viewpoint left a huge gap. She determined to help close it, and this somewhat bemusedly titled book (Rock=nl, Sex is itself, but what’s Paper?) is the result.

“I had no idea,” she writes, “what I was getting into.”

Her plan? “I would interview sex workers. I would write their stories. I would tell it like they told it. I would bear witness. Little did I know that my opinions and assumptions would be stretched and modified ... and that one person’s story and perspective would be vastly different from the next.”

Her research process included posting ads, sending emails, and reading what she could find about the field (a bibliography is included). Interviews were conducted by email or in person at neutral spaces like downtown coffee shops; these she transcribed herself before deleting the audio tapes.

She used their own terms for their work (almost without exception they disdained the term “prostitute.”) She talked to a full spectrum of industry workers, from sex providers, to strippers and exotic dancers, to couples who provide erotic partner massage. (Cull excludes human trafficking, though she does believe it exists in this city.)

Of course, a reader wants details. How does someone get into this work, and world? What do they truly think of it? How do they negotiate, and navigate, such troubled, intimate waters?

Which are among the questions Cull asks.

The articulate answers defy presumption. For example, drugs (excluding alcohol, which the strippers in particular rely on) are not a huge part of these stories. But money is. As “Lori” says, “The money is wicked.”

Lori sees clients in her apartment, as that’s much safer than getting into their cars or going to their place. Her roommates know what she does and, although they leave before a client comes, they stay close by.

“One regular comes over twice a week, braids her hair, gives her a massage, and they talk. It’s her favourite type of client — the ones who just need companionship ... She will service almost anyone as long as they’re respectful and pay up front.” That’s a lesson sex workers learn quickly. Also no cuddling or kissing; that’s too romantic and reserved for their personal relationships. There are a lot of boundaries that need to be drawn and held.

Lori finds the attention she receives for her physical presence affirming. Others also say their work makes them powerful. Grace, a Prodem — a dominatrix — has been “raped two or three times ... depends on what you classify as assault.” But she says her work also protects her. “People never get to know who I am. I am the listener. I am the secret keeper ... I’ll give you an example.” She describes an encounter in a Mcdonald’s with a wealthy, powerful client, “this man who could buy and sell me 50, 100, 1000 times over,” and she keeps him standing by her table, refusing him permission to sit. “There’s nobody in this entire restaurant that can understand the dynamic of what’s happening here ... what they don’t know is, I own him. He’s mine.”

Cull also tours a sensual massage parlour. It’s run by a woman named Nancy, who considers herself a feminist (as do others interviewed here) and wants to provide a safe and drug-free work space. Most of the women who work there have children. Surprisingly, a growing number of clients are women. They can be hard to read, but it’s the odd man who is real trouble – Nancy and her staff have worked with the RNC on guidelines of how to handle, for example, stalkers bent on discovering a masseuse’s home address.

Cull also holds multiple discussions on the implications of Bill C-36, the Harper government’s widely derided piece of legislation, the impacts of legalizing sex work, and what resources are available to sex trade workers.

Sex work is a world much more discretely open than most suspect. But as this, the first such mainstream survey of the sex trade in St. John’s, shows, the oldest profession still contends with some shadows.