“I gave up nursing to become a sex worker.”

This is an edited excerpt from SLUTDOM: Reclaiming a shame-free sexuality by Dr. Hilary Caldwell (out July 2, UQP, $34.99)

“What did you do today?” my daughters would ask when I picked them up from school in our old, beat-up Toyota Tarago. I mumbled something about not having done much. And I hoped I didn’t look as tired as I felt.

When I started sex work, I was a single mother, working part-time as a nurse and paying for childcare. I could feed the kids, but I couldn’t pay the bills. Freshly separated, I couldn’t make up for the loss of my married, middle-class position with a single part-time income. I firmly rejected offers of a rescue relationship. I didn’t need to be rescued. I didn’t want a second round as a wife, and my kids didn’t need a new man in our home.

I was 36 years old when I started working in the sex industry. That said, I had decades of whore-phobic stereotypes embedded in me. At first, I wasn’t ready to see myself as a sex worker; I imagined all the hookers working on street corners—disrespectful and desperate. After reading blogs and books about sex workers to get ideas, I began working for myself as a private escort, offering what I later came to understand as Girlfriend Experiences (known in the industry as GFE). I attracted mostly high-quality clients. But I had to learn things the hard way. Sex workers are still shunned and harshly judged, and the discrimination and stigma surrounding my new career path made coming out unsafe. I hid my sex work from friends and family because I wanted to protect my safety and that of my four daughters. Keeping my sex work a secret was isolating. In the early days, I quickly learned to “screen” clients based on my gut instinct. It wasn’t until a year or two later that I learned about the amazing sex worker community out there and received their advice and support.

My first day as an escort was rough. I didn’t know what to expect. Like many girls, I was taught early in life that there are good women and sluts. Back then, I understood sluts to be “fallen women” whose sexual shame would permanently brand them as morally corrupt. I was convinced from women’s magazines that clients would be rude and demanding and “use my body like a toilet.” Although I was sure that this metaphor was not to be taken literally, I wasn’t sure if I would be treated like an object, as the feminists of my youth, Anne Summers and Germaine Greer, suggested. Perhaps I even believed that I deserved to be disrespected because I had voluntarily opted out of the cult of modesty. I knew I loved sex, and I knew that anything I wore or did made me vulnerable to “slut-shaming,” which is intentionally designed to make women feel ashamed of their sexuality.

Image: Delivered.

Everything felt foreign to me in this new slut world. I had to tell strangers that I was a sex worker in order to advertise my services in the newspapers, while also keeping it a secret from the people I loved. I lived in a city where sex work was legal and naively believed that the system would protect me because I was registered with the government to work in the industry.

I don’t remember who my clients were that first day. I remember seeing four of them. They were sweet and wanted me to have good sex and a good time too. They caressed my body and my ego. I allowed myself to enjoy it. And while each orgasm released the stress from my body, each dollar filled my wallet. It was just sex, but it was good sex. I wiped the post-coital glow from my forehead as I counted more than the week’s wages I earned between nine and three.

Juggling two jobs and four kids was a balancing act. I clocked in at 9pm after a grueling shift in the orthopedic department, my body aching, and aware I would get less sleep than my younger colleagues. Late/Early was the worst. I drove to the babysitter, spoke to them briefly, then packed the kids’ four school bags and our cooler into the car. Next, I picked up each sleeping child, starting with the youngest, and put them in the car. Finally, when they were all in the car, I waved goodbye to the babysitter, drove home, and began the return trip. This routine was common, and all four girls settled into settling comfortably into their own beds for the rest of the night. I, however, did not. I unpacked the cooler, then the school bags, read the school notes, and looked at their new artwork, alone. I washed the lunch boxes and packed everything back up, ready to get in the car the next morning. At around 11pm, I wasted no time falling into bed and falling asleep.

Watch: Australia’s most sexually active woman, Annie Knight. Post continues after video.

The morning shifts weren’t so bad. I got up at 5 a.m. and if I gently shook the girls awake, I could at least laugh with them; they could also walk to the car themselves. My shift at the hospital started at 7 a.m. Living in the suburbs means a long commute, which provides excellent time for reflection.
Eventually I realised I didn’t need to work two jobs anymore. In fact, I could earn more from one day of sex work than from four backbreaking nights on the ward. But I also loved working as a nurse. I loved using my intelligence, warm personality, nursing skills and clinical knowledge to care for other people’s bodies. I ended up continuing to work both jobs, negotiating childcare on rotating shifts for ten years. People love nurses – they call us angels; in most people’s eyes, they are a far cry from those angels of the night. Even then, I knew that nursing was the Madonna image I used to compensate for my whoring.

I’m here to reclaim “slut.” Let’s make it a positive expression of women’s sexual power, not a derogatory label. Slutdom is a place, a condition, and also a state of being within us. Slutdom works to reduce shame and stigma around our sexuality. In slutdom, people have consensual sex in an ethical manner and without gendered rules. Women feel just as powerful as men in sexual conquests, initiating sex, and controlling sexual situations. When we take the word “slut” literally to mean sexual power, we are directly disarming the weapon of words used against us—we are driving the king out of his kingdom. When we don’t reclaim those words, the weapons remain in the arsenal of patriarchy.

The word “slut” and similar words such as “whore” trigger strong emotions in women. We have been trained to fear being branded as openly sexual. The shame inflicted on sexuality in the Victorian era still exists because shame around sex is passed down through generations. The different ways in which sexual shame is inflicted on the sexes demonize women seeking pleasure – these are issues of sexual human rights.

The effect of different sexual norms for different genders is a culture that promotes sexual violence and coercion, punishes some people for behaving outside the norm, and perpetuates gender differences in sexual pleasure. Today, 50 percent of women are slut-shamed, and surprisingly, 20 percent of men are too. Sluts are demonized on social media and everywhere we go. Even though we personally define the word slut differently, it is obviously still the last thing a woman wants to be because of what it has been socialized to be. And that is why many women are not yet ready to accept the word slut. This is a shame that is literally based on shame. And shame about sex must end.

My story as a sex worker doesn’t offer a silver bullet to our lack of equality. However, my experience as a woman—and as a slut—gives me a unique perspective on the plight of being a woman, being bombarded with sexual advances from men, victim-blaming for consent violations and rape, and being controlled by slut-shaming narratives. Being a public and professional slut is a way of fighting back and fighting back. And I will not apologize for having sex, loving it, or asking for money for it.

This is an edited excerpt from SLUTDOM: Reclaiming a shame-free sexuality by Dr. Hilary Caldwell (out July 2, UQP, $34.99)

Featured image: Delivered.

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