When Query tells her mother on camera that she’s not only making a film about strippers, but works as one herself, the reaction is explosive and reveals the issues that divide women over sex work. NEWSWEEK’s Joshua Phillips spoke to Query about her film, her confession to her mother and sex workers.
Newsweek: Why were you interested in making a film about sex workers organizing a labor union? Query: As we were organizing the union we attracted the attention from the mainstream news media. When they reported that we unionized, they reported it with a smirk. We also got a lot of calls for interviews from radio shock jockeys, but we refused those because they were salacious. Because we worried about becoming a movie-of-the week, I wanted to tell our own story. First I shot footage for a documentary filmmaker I knew. She gave me a very polite ’no,’ and said that I should make it.
Why did you become a sex worker in the first place? I wanted a job with flexible hours and good pay. I left graduate school, and I wanted to work on art in San Francisco. A lot of women who work as artists go to the sex industry because it gives you the time you need.
But your film is about strippers who are fighting for better pay and working conditions–isn’t the sex industry exploitative work? The pay wasn’t great, it was okay. But since we organized it has increased dramatically. The sex industry, like every industry, is going to exploit workers unless the workers are legally supported to fight back. The sex industry in general has areas that are highly exploitative of women, and areas that are less so. There are many different jobs–some are good, some are okay, some suck. Being a crack-ho on the street sucks; being an erotic masseuse isn’t so bad.
Many women take the position that sex work is inherently demeaning or exploitative. Why don’t you agree? People assume that being the object of sexual desire is inherently demeaning. I would challenge that. It’s offensive when guys call out to me in an obnoxious or sexual manner when I walk down the street. When I go to work, I’m agreeing to it–it’s my choice. The men are behind glass, I’m safe, I’m getting paid for it and it’s a fine experience for me and for them.
Does sex work, by portraying women as sex objects, contribute to the crude behavior men exhibit toward women? If we want to talk about encouraging men to think of the objectification of women then we have to get rid of the entire mainstream media, not the porn industry. We have to get rid of “Charlie’s Angels” and Cosmopolitan magazine. The porn industry takes up very little of our public space. What takes up a lot of our public space is advertisement–things that affect a larger population than pornography. Most of the men who come to peep shows are nice guys and they’re taking time off from work to look at some beautiful woman and have sexual fantasies. Maybe they’ll have an orgasm, and then they’re in a better mood when they go back to work. I don’t think it makes them less respectful toward women. At least in pornography women have a variety of bodies. You can get magazine with fat women in pornography; you could never get a woman that’s above a size two in Cosmo.
How did you set up the interview with your mother in the film? Did she have any idea you were going to surprise her with news that you were a stripper and a dominatrix? I knew I had to tell my mother what I was doing because we were invited to the same conference on prostitution. I didn’t have to tell her on video, but I told her before that I wanted to do an interview about her work and our relationship. After the interview, I showed her edited versions and we both agreed about how to present it. I didn’t jump on her in some sort of Jerry Springer fashion.
During your exchange, she says that one of her concerns is that your work as a stripper would trivialize her work as an activist for sex workers and as a doctor who does outreach for prostitutes. Was there any negative fallout with her after the film premiered? I don’t think so. The film’s been very successful. We were invited to show the film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It also had a great review in the New York Times, and that’s been a Talmud for my people. The film hasn’t harmed her. She’s a very loving woman, though she’s more proud of me for being a filmmaker than a stripper. But if the film wasn’t as good, she might have been less okay with it. She wasn’t concerned about career, but the ability to do her work with outreach to women who are abandoned by society and are otherwise not serviced.
Did your mother’s attitude about sex work change after you told her about being a stripper and a dominatrix? I think a little. She helps women who work in the worst parts of the sex industry and helps them leave the industry. Nobody wants to be a crack-ho–it’s not a career choice. Now I think she recognizes that there are better working conditions for women in the sex industry who have made a valid choice to work in that industry. About 10 percent of American women have worked in or currently work in the industry. It’s a huge industry that involves women working the Internet, giving phone sex, professional dominatrixes, strippers, bar dancers, go-go dancers, prostitutes, erotic masseuses, call girls, streetwalkers and so forth.
Did you feel ashamed after your mother was visibly upset when you announced that you were working as a stripper? Actually, I felt a lot more shame before my mother knew, because I imagined her shame. It was kind of like being in the closet about being gay. When you’re in the closet, you imagine the shame and judgment and you feel it as you imagine it.
In the film, you say it was harder to tell your mother that you were a sex worker than to tell her that you were gay. Why? There is more ideology of pride for being gay. There are parades, organizations, elected officials for gays. The only really famous sex worker we have is Margot St. James.
Would you say that the dynamic between you and your mother sums up how many people feel about sex work–people would generally be supportive of sex-worker rights, but they wouldn’t want their children to do it because they still find it degrading? Yes, I think that’s true. I do a kind of work that my mother fought hard to get away from. As a doctor, she fought to be not only seen as a sex object. So it’s hard for her to see her daughter working as a sex object.
What else would have to change in order to impress people that sex work is legitimate and worth supporting those who are fighting for better working conditions? The most important thing is that people need to recognize that it’s work. Sex work is a huge industry in this country and in the world. And women who work in it deserve rights like workers in any industry deserve rights. I happen to think that it’s more moral than some work out there. I’m not making nuclear weapons, and I’m not doing things that harm people. I’m helping some people who chose to engage in the industry to have good sexual feelings. I think that’s healthy, I don’t think that’s a problem.
Has your film or the Lusty Lady’s union helped inspire other strippers to organize, aside from a few in Alaska and Pennsylvania? Well, the film has helped inspire workers who are not in the sex industry to organize. For example, workers at the Museum of Modern Art in New York sought to organize after they saw the film. And we did a benefit for the New York University graduate school students’ union organizing efforts. And many, many strippers have contacted us about organizing from every state in the union. But there has yet to be another strippers’ union. There have been many organizing efforts for better working conditions, that strippers have won that without formally forming a union.
Why is it so difficult for strippers to organize? For the same reason that it’s hard for anyone in a stigmatized industry to organize. It’s hard to fight for your rights if you’re afraid to tell people what you do. And strippers generally think that they’ll only do it temporarily–just a few weeks to pay off bills, or make enough for vacation–and then suddenly it’s five weeks later and they still haven’t organized.
Are you still stripping for the Lusty Lady? Yup. I’ve been doing it for five years.
Why? Because I’m broke and still in graduate school.
Are there a lot of women with advanced degrees who work as strippers? Oh yeah. About 60 to 70 percent at the Lusty Lady have been [to college], about 30 percent are currently in graduate school, and we have one Harvard graduate. It’s not a job that only undereducated women are doing. There’s a big advantage to get paid to exercise and have flexible hours.
What else are you doing? I’m doing my internship to get my degree to work as a psychotherapist, so I’m working as a social worker for the severely mentally ill.
