This is a piece about prostitution, or rather more accurately, a piece about prostitutes. This is simply me talking to five people because I want to learn more about the life of a sex worker. We live in a country where prostitution is an industry in the dark. This piece conveys the subjective experiences of those interviewed.
It is not a statement of message or of fact. It started with an email. His name is Irish Bradley and his website highly suggested that he was a prostitute. My cold call email was an awkward mess of apologetic intrigue.
Wracked with anxiety, I hit send. And he replied. Bradley definitely did not want to be in my article but he started to help me on my way. He gave me a name to chase. We kept talking. Bits and pieces, flashes of him, seemed to fall out as if by accident. All I have in my head is that woman, from TV: scantily clad, angry, uneducated, brash and vulnerable. I struggled with that at first. I had my own idea of what the transaction was. I had thought of commodification: Customer X buys some kind of ownership of Prostitute Y.
I guess I viewed prostitution as selling yourself as opposed to selling a service. Bradley paints a different picture. There are limits and there are rules. Staying clean, staying safe and staying in control all seem to facets of a bigger idea: self-worth. His desires to travel, to be wanted, to be fed and to have money are swapped for the fulfillment of their sexual desires. His desire to be desired is met with theirs. Sweet Rachel , my second port of call, tells a similar tale. Things were hard.
Prostitution made things easier. Her voice smashes through your head like a hammer. As one would expect, Rachel keeps control as well. Honesty piques my interest and she explains. She has a personality and she forces them to see it. It makes her confident and happy that these men want her and remember her.
