[0:05]There are no reliable statistics on how many sex workers live and work in Canada. It's a crime to buy sex. The stigma of admitting to sex work keeps those who do it silent. But there are a few women in Vancouver who plan to change that. We're sex workers and we're allies and we're standing for our rights. Yeah, so it's both of those rights, right? Mindy is a theater director and she's doing what she usually does, direct. I think we need to push a little bit on the hour. Okay. So that we can understand that we're it's inclusive. But Danielle is not an actor. This is no ordinary rehearsal for her because she's getting ready to come out to the world. We stand sex workers and allies standing for our rights. For our rights. Sorry. I don't know, I have a problem with that. Oh well. Okay. That's good. Standing for our rights, our entitlements. Welcome to the hooker monologues. Yes, you heard that right. The hooker monologues, a bold plan by a group of sex workers and their allies to come out of the shadows and tell their real life stories on stage in front of an audience a first in Vancouver. I hope that by hearing stories by actual sex workers, people will have a reference point.
[1:42]We have communities and families and hopes and dreams and we're complex people, we're not just whores. We we are here to close the distance between ourselves and those we do not understand. One family, one love, all hookers, one and all.
[2:09]Well people would sort of tag me as a sexual exploited youth for one. So I was about 16, 17 and I've been um um from the industry uh now, jeez, I lose count.
[2:31]Uh about an eight or nine years, 10 years.
[2:38]Daniel and the rest of the group meet in this common room once a month. They've been writing and rehearsing for over a year. Not everyone here is a sex worker though. Some call themselves allies, supporters who are telling the stories of women too afraid to come out. It's a scary proposition. It could impact families, relationships, job opportunities. Their plan is to perform at Vermont's Firehall Art Center next March. But they're more than a little worried how audiences will react. So tonight, a test run at this church, a workshop, they're up in 30 minutes. I guess the first thing I want to say to you all is congratulations to everyone for getting this far. get that shit out of the way. So Well, you're welcome. Take it.
[3:37]Velvet has nothing to hide. She's proud of who she is and what she does for a living. She recently entered a women's body building competition, the first transsexual in Vancouver to do this.
[3:56]You see all this, already, this is pretty obvious, the visual. But it's beneath that that I want people to know about and and to see and and most people don't take the time to learn that or see that because they're so stuck on the visual part of it. I'm creative, I'm artistic. Um, I love life. I love people in it. I love the world. I I On your Twitter handle, how do you describe yourself? Canada's hot as post-up transsexual fettish lady. I, you know, I mean I like fetish. I I like the presentation that it gives.
[4:40]Velvet also takes pride in being a dominatrix. I love to know the workings of the human mind when it pertains to fetish and how someone has an interest in a particular thing. Velvet's monologue is about getting dressed for a client. Her ritual ends with the simple act of putting on lipstick, a lipstick she calls Forever Red. Forever Red, talked and dragged about, a color worn for strength and power, a color sensual and sexual. Forever Red. However, on my lips. Okay, great. I want to stop. Great. Instead of sinking, think about giving it to us. When you say, however, tell me to fuck off. However, on my lips. Great. It's a cold that's not cheap and tadry, dirty, low class. Forever red, whispered and gossiped about. Forever red on the lips of women demoralized as loose, social standing, pathetic, desperate and broke. A harlot, a slut, a whore. I've been stabbed, um, I've been slashed. I've had beer bottles smashed over my head. Um, I've had chunks of flesh bitten out, sexually assaulted. Because of being a transwoman. Because of being a transwoman. Because I'm trans, because I'm sex worker, because I do domination. Carmen lost a few friends when she told them she was a sex worker. A path that began when she found an unusual solution to her relationship problems. Yes.
[6:30]funny, funny beginning. I I started into sex work as a client, which is always surprising when for people when they hear that, because first of all, women can't be clients and the sex worker I saw was male and men can't be sex workers. So that turns the whole narrative on its head. Eventually, she became a sex worker herself, first working with a madam, then an escort agency and finally deciding to work on her own as a specialist in trix sex to help her clients heal. I've worked with people with severe trauma. I've worked with people who had anxiety disorders that kept them from having sexual experiences with other people until their mid-40s. And I've watched people come from this and blossom and become happier, healthier people. And to say that that's wrong and to criminalize them, it's it makes me sick. Which brings us back to the hooker monologues. Why do it? Because society needs to change and because I don't like living in closets. They're good for clothes and that's about it. I amuse my workmates with stories. Carmen's monologue is about her escort service days and she doesn't leave much to the imagination as she described a client who's had too much cocaine. So I get to it. I start sucking and bobbing around, though with a floppy merchandise, feels more like gargling a fish wrapped in plastic. The marathon session lasts 5 hours. My belly is rumbling, but chewing is something I'm quite certain I'll never want to do again. Maybe a smoothie. All right. I don't have a blender. Why don't I have a blender? Damn it. I have to start making better life choices. Okay. Whenever you're ready. I am not a sex worker. I am an ally to the sex worker movement. Esther is a die hard feminist who once believed prostitution oppresses women. Period. But her monologue is about how her mind changed to accept women have a right to choose sex work and be safe. What rage them was that women they knew and loved were disappearing and dying and no one seemed to give a damn. As a proud radical feminist, I was in a quanderry. I want her audience just to have their minds opened a small amount. people hold on to their perspectives about prostitution, sex work really heard. These are my sisters's journals. Some of them. Maggie is here to tell the story of her sister Sarah, who worked the streets of Vancouver's downtown East side, whose DNA was found on the farm of serial killer Robert Pickton. Maggie's is a fictional conversation with ex-s from Sarah's actual journals. People need people to live. If you build a wall that is so god damn high that no one can contact you, you might as well be in jail. Divine is the group's youngest member. She's reading Sarah's part. Do you remember that Christmas when you brought us all presents? Toys for your daughter, leather jacket, that's for your brothers. I get so scared and nervous. Is that why you brought all that stuff? I pushed people who care about me away. Were you nervous that day coming to see us? I try to get them upset with me. Sarah, or start false accusations to make them hate me. Sarah. I'm hiding behind these walls that touch the sky. Sarah and I have had similar experiences, you know, children and addictions, like homelessness, and all that stuff. This is Sarah. the last known footage of her. I didn't know she was scared. I didn't know she wanted out. I didn't know she wanted to mother her children. I didn't know that when she left my home that day, I would never see her again, that in a few months, even her body would be gone forever. On April 14th, 1998, Sarah disappeared. Four years later, we learned that she was murdered that night. She's writing this and and and and knowing that you're involved in this woman's life as her sister, but not knowing that this is what she's been feeling. I can't even imagine what that would feel like. Um, so, yeah. It's very real. It's very real. These women know better than anyone, how dangerous it can be in a country where sex workers aren't protected. And Daniel remembers fights in her own family, fights with her foster mother who's in the audience tonight. You know, I was in sex worker movement. You know, we were mobilizing for rights. Um, you know, this was when women were going missing from the downtown East side. I mean all over BC. Um, and so we would, you know, we would just get in blowouts at the dinner table and it would leave, you know, me running out of the house in tears and she her in tears and my poor dad trying to you know, try to comfort both of us at the same time but being stuck in the middle.
[12:48]When the workshop ends, the audience gets their chance to speak. Ladies, I want to thank you for your courage and your stories. Uh tonight uh it was an awesome experience. Uh thank you very much. Then something remarkable happens when Daniel's father mother steps up to the mic. I'm going to sneak in.
[13:14]So, my daughter was a sex trade worker.
[13:25]But because of your humility, all of you. Your bravery, your honesty, because of all those elements in your presentation tonight. I know that our relationship can be deeper now. And uh I thank you.
[14:01]This process has been um, healing. Um, a lot of the things that have kept me safe uh during that time.
[14:17]Um, a lot of those things uh have changed now and I guess for me. Um, I don't have to be brave. Um, I don't have to be strong. Um, I can just be real and I can feel. It is a rare moment for women so accustomed to being shamed.
[14:48]There's still much to do before their big launch next March which they'll balance with their working lives because the demand for sex work won't end and it's unsafe. of sex workers are forced to remain in shadows.
[15:07]Duncan, C.C. News, Vancouver.
