For almost two years, I have worked with ordinary women, self-employed workers in the industry. Students, mothers, sisters, lovers, nurses, graphic designers, musicians, cashiers. For some, it’s a side job; for others it’s full-time. In the staff room, we tell each other our stories, we talk about our clients. Sometimes, we work on our computers in silence while waiting for appointments, sometimes, we share snacks and laugh loudly. In the strip club dressing room, we chat with the bouncer while putting on deodorant and take dinner breaks. We work where we choose to work and on good days, we earn a very good salary. I have many friends who work online, others who are independent escorts. I know a male escort for women too. Everyone, regardless of gender, needs physical contact. You’d be surprised how many people around us use these services but remain anonymous for fear of legal repercussions, stigma and shame.
Why is it still so inconceivable today that it is not necessarily humiliating and traumatic for a woman to get paid to dance naked or offer sexual services? Why is it automatically offensive to imagine a woman performing multiple blowjobs in one day? As far as I’m concerned, the end result of the feminist sexual revolution is to recognize the traumas we have lived through and to give ourselves the means, however diverse, to heal from them. Our great-grandmothers and grandmothers, required to sexually satisfy their husbands and produce children even when they didn’t want to. Our grandmothers, our mothers, and we live in a society where scientific research on female sexual organs is woefully behind that of male sexual organs. Our mothers, sisters, daughters, and we ourselves, who still have to research contraception for ourselves and fear that abortion rights will be revoked here too. Can we acknowledge our sexual trauma and work together to heal and liberate ourselves, all while respecting each other’s pace? Live and let live. I understand and appreciate that some women may feel repulsed and threatened by the kind of sexuality instilled in us by the hetero-patriarchal system. Because this model is indeed abusive, restrictive, and threatening to us. But all while recognizing this, could we also be capable of caring for each other inclusively and respectfully, allowing each of us the freedom to manage the use of our body as we see fit? If I enjoy offering sex, paid or free, with my own body, which I take care of and which belongs to me, who am I hurting? My body continues to belong to me after my workday. I ride my bike with it, I pet my cat with it, I eat with it, I listen to music that I like with it, I work out with it, I have a glass of wine with it. I have sold a service but not my body. I find that getting paid to perform femininity and heteronormative sexuality is also a way to infiltrate the institution to bring it down from within. Because it recognizes that women never owe men anything. No sexual and/or relational work. No care work and no extra mental workload. That there are people paid to offer this kind of service, as far as I’m concerned, contributes to a return of power. To avoid the exploitation insidiously victimizing all of us in societies that teach us to fulfill men’s needs for free because “it is due to them.”
Coming back to the play, I also want to mention the things I liked: first of all, the fact that it raises questions about bodily autonomy in the context of egg donation. This is a topic I knew little about until recently, and it is pertinent to reflect on. And secondly, I liked how the client archetype was humanized through the character of Max. Well, what I remember is that the couple doesn’t communicate very well and that Max betrayed his girlfriend. He’s not the hero of the story, let’s say. But I’ll take that as a jumping-off point to say a word about clients. Before working in the field, I thought clients would all be big drunk macho jerks or old perverts. In the end, those clients do exist, but they are not the majority. And just like massage therapists, osteopaths, or tattoo artists, after an unpleasant appointment with a bad client, I make a note to myself not to take that client anymore. In reality, the majority of my regular clients are ordinary people. Neuro-divergent people, people with disabilities, recently divorced dads, insecure young people, old widowers, veterans, terminally ill men, and newcomers who have difficulty meeting someone because of cultural and language barriers. People with human needs. People who want to cuddle, who want to come and be validated. The patriarchy harms male-socialized people too. Everyone needs to be educated and to heal. I believe in the capacity of people and societies to learn from their mistakes and to improve themselves. I think there are many ways to change people’s behaviour and stop exploitation and violence against women. But just as I don’t think banning the sale or purchase of sex teaches men to respect and care for women or themselves, I don’t believe that it is prostitution that prevents women from having the same privileges as men. Misogyny is everywhere. In the price of feminine-gendered products, fatphobia, systemic racism and rape culture. It is within our intimate relationships and marriages. It is in the justice system, deficient when it comes to defending survivors of sexual abuse. Violence exists far beyond the concept of prostitution, and I think the day that society respects and cares for prostitutes as for any other woman, we will all have won something.
You carry your feminist fight through your art, and so do I. There are many feminisms and truths, yes. But to read comments like Francine Pelletier’s, quoted at the end of your play, which suggest that women are being inconsistent by choosing “to look like dolls”7 or “choosing to stay home and raise their children”8 revolts me. To think that women cannot perform an ultra-feminine gender identity or decide to dedicate their lives to their children at the risk of harming the feminist cause is binary and outdated feminist thinking. It still puts all the pressure on women, as if society will always hold it against them no matter their choice. As for my feminism, I update it constantly, and I fight for it on all fronts. In my personal and professional life. On the streets, in my bed, and on social networks. My songs are about our emancipation, and I use my workplaces as a space for direct intervention. I work with my legs, armpits, hairy pubis, shaved head, and sometimes long nails and artificial lashes. I feel beautiful and whole. I always say what I think. I am gentle and tender, but I never overstep my boundaries: I am firm in enforcing them. I resist, educate, and I cum. Sometimes at work and always in my intimate life. I cum. Because I am a woman and I belong to myself. Because I am a rigorous intellectual, a passionate artist, a faithful friend, a committed lover, a staunch feminist, a caring sister and a gifted and proud sex worker. If I am accused of inconsistency, I would say it is more a matter of freedom. Cultivated and nurtured through adversity.
Reading your play, Véronique, I felt uncomfortable and bitter. It upsets me even more to think that the play will be presented in September at La Bordée. I can’t see how presenting this work will do anyone any good. But I can see how it will hurt many people. This play exudes fear, helplessness, rage, and pain but does not offer real solutions to improve anyone’s well-being. This play conveys all sorts of feelings that I share facing the injustices and violence experienced by women. Still, it approaches this complex subject in such a superficial and one-sided way that its impact is already being felt negatively in my personal life, as it will inevitably be felt in those of my friends and colleagues. Even if I do not share your opinions on the future of prostitution, I would like to highlight all the good you and Martine are undoubtedly doing by listening to and helping victims of sexual violence get out of violent situations and rebuild their lives. I sincerely thank you for being there for these women, but I also urge you to consider the impact a play like La Paix des femmes can have on the collective imagination. For if the three of us are initiated into the subject of prostitution and human trafficking, the average person is entirely ignorant of the reality and issues involved. To present such an alarmist and unnuanced work will have, in my opinion, damaging moral repercussions on the cause of SWers and women in prostitution, particularly in Quebec City and the surrounding area. Therefore, I am addressing this letter to you, Véronique, and the entire production team to ask you to act by opening a healthy and diverse dialogue with our SWers community and integrating other points of view and informative resources from our community into the presentation of your play. We really need safe working conditions, to be listened to, consideration, inclusion, justice and respect.
I am sending you this letter through the SWAC, a self-governed organization in which I am an activist, to maintain my anonymity. Thank you for respecting my anonymity, even though you may have recognized me by the very personal tone of my letter.
Thank you for reading my words.
In the hope of awakening reflection and compassion.
Maxime Holliday
25 juillet 2022
