The Student Review: Is this Gaslighting?

So, I got a pass with merit for my written work (which was blind marked, thankfully), but my uni, unsurprisingly, failed me on the student review. I thought I’d go through some of the six page document, as it is quite something to behold.

I’ve had a lot of different responses from academics by being out as a sex worker. In my previous university, there were the inevitable swerfs who saw me as a happy hooker, tool of the patriarchy and all that. But, there were also academics who were interested in my experiences, relationships with clients and enjoyed and respected my ability to look at my job via the theories I’d studied (which I really enjoy doing too). Those interactions were nourishing and we could discuss difficult topics without any sense of attack or defensiveness.

This psychotherapy course has been my first experience of being viewed as a threat and experiencing how organisations respond to a perceived threat. The feedback is contradictory and takes things I’ve said out of context to paint a picture of someone who is, yes you guessed it, pathological and an abuser. After all, all kinksters are pathological and whores are the worst kind. I’m lucky in that I have decades of life experience and relationships with people spanning from only the past six months to eighteen years who do not recognise me in what has been written. This leads me to believe that there is a motivation behind these comments, rather than them being an honest appraisal of my character.

So, let’s get into it…
(don’t worry, I won’t go through it all. I’ll just pick out a few examples)

I’ll start with the one that I was most shocked by:
I do not demonstrate an awareness of issues of difference and equality.
If you’ve read any of this blog, you’ll see that I’ve spent this whole year complaining that difference and diversity have not been included on this course, that minority stress is not considered and I’ve also spoken and written about my privilege as a white, educated, cis woman who is often read as straight and upper-middle class. I would never deny that my life is immeasurably easier because I occupy those identities and I try to use them to advocate for others. But, it seems that minority status somehow precludes me from understanding difference and diversity; I don’t understand that point. Can only straight, white, middle age, married people with two kids understand diversity? I was totally dumbfounded by this and tried to discuss it with my tutor, but just got what had been written parroted back to me.

I do not understand the BACP Ethical Framework nor know how to use it.
At my tutorials, like the above point, this didn’t seem to be a problem, then I commented that “who receives ethical treatment under the BACP Ethical Framework appears to be a social and political issue.” My critique of the implementation of the framework has been used as evidence of me not understanding the framework. Apparently, this means I haven’t engaged with it. From my own experience, those of many, many sex workers and kinksters I know, and the fact that there are now BACP guidelines for working with GSRD clients, I don’t think my point was particularly controversial and shows a greater engagement with the reality of working with and experiences of the framework.

You won’t be surprised to read that my job was used as evidence that I don’t demonstrate psychological maturity.
I had drawn parallels between my job, working with fantasies, fears etc and psychotherapy and they saw that as me not understanding what the ‘emotional content’ of a psychotherapy session would be. The obvious similarities between sex work and psychotherapy are controversial, but I think interesting. I had also spoken about boundaries and containment in my job and the response was that I didn’t understand that these terms were symbolic. I’d like to be clear, I don’t literally put clients in containers – I thought these terms were always symbolic. I think it’s fair to say that they’re not interested in toning down the whorephobia that clearly permeates this document and the institution.

The fact that I also do trauma sensitive yoga and sexological bodywork was used as evidence that I was not engaging with my talking therapy.
I find all these types of therapy complimentary and I honestly don’t believe that one approach on its own is sufficient sometimes. There’s no evidence that I haven’t engaged with talking therapy (I’ve learnt a lot more from it than from my course this year, that’s for sure), but the mention of other approaches seems too challenging.

I am not able to accept supervision.
This is a confusing one. I had commented that I like honest and direct feedback on what went well and what didn’t, so I can see if my perspective matches with my supervisor’s and if there’s anything I missed. This was used as evidence that I only accept supervision on my own terms and have a problem with authority. Who wants dishonest feedback?! Surely, the point of feedback is to know what went well and what didn’t? I don’t know how that is only accepting supervision on my own terms. Just receiving compliments is pointless. With the authority thing, I would obviously disagree. I have spoken and written extensively about power on the course and my problem is not so much with authority, than with unjust uses of power. My unwillingness to accept discrimination (against myself and others) was used as evidence of my problem with authority, so it’s pretty obvious what this is really about.

Finally, I was told that my critiques of texts were “denigrating” psychoanalysis.
That’s right, “denigrating”. In my presentations, I spoke about the positives and negatives of theories and concluded on a positive note. No theory is perfect and it’s interesting to consider the theories it developed from, the time period and how it affects different groups. I think a course has to be pretty dogmatic to see critique and debate as “denigrating” a theory.

Anyway, all the other points are pretty similar to those. I hope you can see that the pieces of evidence they use do not match the points they make and often they contradict one another. It is a bizarre document. It feels like, “We dislike this person. What can we say about them? OK, pick out a random quote they’ve said somewhere and chuck it in. Nope, doesn’t need to make sense.”

 

What I get from this is that this institution has ignored the last thirty years of research about BDSM and therefore still sees it as pathological and does not want to be seen to condone anything pathological. At least I didn’t get to the end of the course and then get told they wouldn’t pass me. I have heard examples of this happening to people from minority groups; race and sexuality seem to be big factors in this.

Maybe I just have to accept that the majority of people working as and training psychotherapists haven’t worked through their sex stuff and are simply unwilling and unable to do so. I thought being out was enough, but one lesson from this is to ask explicitly whether institutions expect me to change my job, ‘realise’ that BDSM is pathological, go work in an office, get married to a ‘nice young man’ and have babies etc etc. Maybe I need to ask them if they understand what I mean by sex work and BDSM and whether that will become a problem for them. A good lesson to learn.

I just really hope I’ve made some kind of impact on the other students, particularly with possible law changes coming up. We need more safe, supportive therapists.

If you’re a sex worker looking to train as a therapist in London, UK, even if you’re not out, please hit me up. I don’t want anyone else to experience this. I already hate the fact that I’ve financed a whorephobic, kinkphobic (all the phobias!) institution for two years. There are other places that will treat us with the respect we deserve that we can give our hard earned cash to. This is an industry that desperately needs more people from marginalised communities who can ask the difficult questions, whilst still offering unconditional positive regard.

Take care x

Physical & Emotional Effects of Whorephobia & Kinkphobia

As I’m finally nearing the end of this academic year, I thought I’d collect together the effects that the whorephobia and kinkphobia on my course have had on me, artificially separated into physical and emotional effects.

This course has devastated me physically and probably mentally, but I don’t want to admit that to myself. Here’s what I’ve noticed (particularly over the past four months):

PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF WHOREPHOBIA & KINKPHOBIA:

• constant headaches
• frequent migraines (at least twice a week)
• stomachache
• constant, severe stomach bloating (not great when I need to wear tight clothes for work!)
• tense stomach muscle
• neck, back and shoulder tension, ache and stiffness
• pins and needles in legs and hands
• fatigue, always tired, needing to take naps in the afternoon
• takes 90 minutes to get out of bed, so always late
• aching, heavy body
• injuries from the gym and unable to lift as heavy as before
• constant need to eat sugar/salt/carbs
• weight gain (again, not good for work)
• several episodes of very sensitive teeth and gums
• erratic heartbeat, particularly when at uni
• shallow breathing
• hair and nails growing slower(!)
• Worse eczema (takes longer to improve)

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF WHOREPHOBIA & KINKPHOBIA:

• hopelessness
• feeling unacceptable
• ashamed
• feeling judged (unsurprisingly)
• blaming myself
• feeling stupid, deskilled
• lack of motivation
• poor concentration
• worrying
• anxiety if I’m not constantly eating, leading to panic
• distrusting anyone who I see as an “outsider”
• hypervigilence
• obsession with cleaning even worse: needing to clean more, do laundry and wash hands more often
• not wanting to leave the house, even for fun things
• rage (but not hitting out)
• overwhelming feeling of injustice
• loneliness
• confusion

Are people from minority groups who refuse to play the victim or mimic the majority that much of a threat on psychotherapy trainings? Apparently so.

So, onto a few thoughts that people may have when reading this:

Some people may say, “Is it really that bad? Sounds like it’s all in your head!”
From what I’ve seen, you either conform or you are pushed out, and it seems I’m not the first (and probably not the last) to experience this. I find the similarities in others’ stories and experiences interesting to say the least. It’s difficult to accept when we succeed because of privilege and inequality, but these topics need to be discussed. I’m white and cis, so I’m very aware of how those two identities make my existence infinitely more comfortable than someone who is not white nor cis. Why does one have to conform to a certain template to succeed on a psychotherapy course?

Some people have said to me, “Why don’t you just ignore it?”
After all, no-one is physically hitting me or anything along those lines. But, anyone who has been bullied, experienced an emotionally/verbally abusive relationship or been exploited in some way will understand that “just ignoring it” doesn’t stop the devastating effects on your health. The more you ignore, the worse it gets.

Finally, a tongue-in-cheek response: “Sounds sadistic. Don’t you do BDSM?”
I’d just like to reiterate something that is often impossible for kinkphobes to understand. BDSM is consensual; sadism in a BDSM context is consensual and negotiated; if it is not consensual, it is abuse.

Although all this is really draining, it would be much, much worse if I were isolated. I’m really lucky that I have a lot of support and I know the importance of relationships. So, contact and conversations with wonderful, loving friends and allies have been invaluable. So many times I’ve whatsapped my friends and received unconditional support and love, had phone calls from them to check everything is OK and offers to meet up and do fun things or just go for a cup of tea. That ongoing support really helps alleviate all these symptoms. Knowing this academic year is drawing to a close is helpful too, plus I get to celebrate my freedom at Pride!

Alongside my therapy, I do trauma sensitive yoga and I’ve just recently got into TRE (trauma release exercises). They help me to protect and heal my body, rather than it soaking up and holding onto all this toxicity. So, although I have to survive uni, as it’s now very clear that thriving there is impossible, outside of uni, I have opportunities to explore and grow.

I hope to find a psychotherapy training course that will accept the real me and value what I and other sex workers and kinky folk can bring to this industry.

Until next time x

Power and Privilege: Who gets Heard

My time on this psychotherapy course is like a study in power. If I hadn’t already had all these experiences several times before, it would be enlightening.

Whorephobia and kinkphobia are threaded throughout academia (and the world of psychotherapy it seems). They’re the reasons I left my previous university and I carry their weight at my current university. For me, they’re usually overtly enacted through judgement from women in academia who are often white, often middle class (but not exclusively) and always consider themselves feminists. I’ve never accepted the label of being a victim, so I’m a ‘bad woman’, a threat; apparently I’m an agent of the patriarchy, an abuser. It’s the reason I hate higher education (even though I love learning), but I need to be there to build the future I want for myself. I don’t have other options and I don’t have a safety net.

The stigma I’ve faced has been from women; I haven’t had many lecturers of other genders. However, I think it’s worth pointing out some experiences from other student sex workers that SWARM’s recent takeover of Neville Southall’s Twitter highlighted. They shared testimonies from student sex workers who have been sexually abused and blackmailed by men in academia and who received no support from and were even rejected and blamed by universities (an abusive male academic’s career is more important than a vulnerable student’s education). I don’t have those experiences, but I knew they had happened and were continuing to happen at my previous university.

Back to my current predicament. I want to share a small vignette from one of my classes because I think it’s a tiny example that represents the whole system. This week, I did a presentation on a paper we were set. It occurred to me that no-one ever critiques the papers we’re given (something that has been a prerequisite to get a good grade on any other course I’ve done). I summarised the paper and critiqued it by thinking about power, pointing out the assumption of male supremacy and the analyst’s ability to be objective and know what’s right for the client and then highlighting the analyst’s obvious wish to ignore engaging with the concept of power because of how problematic it would be for the theory. It was also a (not so) veiled critique of the course and institution, since my direct critiques (verbal and written) have been ignored.

You won’t be surprised to know that all those points that would have been so enlivening to discuss were ignored. Even if students totally disagreed with what I had to say, I would really enjoy hearing their views. But that would be too many different opinions. Instead, the tutor enthusiastically engaged with another student who set about regurgitating the text – a white, middle age, middle class mother, safe and agreeable, pointing to all the right bits in the text and agreeing with it all. And there was the split: good students repeat the text and do as they’re told; bad students go off script and are uncontrollable – if we ignore them, hopefully they’ll go away. But we don’t go away, we get stronger because we’ve had to fight this fight 1000 times before and we’ve had enough of it.

One interesting development is that, even though they seem to be too afraid to speak out, now several of my classmates come up to me every week outside of class to let me know that they see what’s happening and that they’re angry about it too. I don’t understand why these relatively powerful people can’t say a word of support during class, but I’m so happy that they see how power is playing out and how damaging it is. After the presentation and discussion, one of my friends stated that she could see why I have to hold back so much; it’s not what they want to hear – “Only certain people are allowed to speak here and only certain things are allowed to be said”. She said that she feels at home at this uni because she’s a straight, white, married mother of two and the course was designed by and for people like her. Her saying that made a horrible day a little more bearable. She is a wonderful friend.

The rest of my day continued in that vein. I frankly hate university; it is the worst part of my week. It’s the one place where I’m not heard, not supported, not nourished. I’m lucky I have wonderful, loving, caring, funny, intelligent people around me outside of university or I would be in a very desperate situation. My university struggles to retain students from minority groups and it is no surprise.

Until next time x

When your University Believes Working in BDSM = Being an Abuser

“Some people may be concerned that you are reenacting an abuse dynamic.”
And then I was asked to justify how my job does not translate to me abusing men.
And told how I could “work through” this – yep, you guessed it, leaving sex work.
I was crying at this point.
I cried throughout the 30 minute tutorial and the 35 minute walk home.
I felt so alone.
I felt sick.

I have spent two years very clearly and concisely explaining exactly what I do in my various roles in the sex industry. But, what has been heard is not what I have said. It’s impossible to justify yourself to someone who has already made up their mind. And why should I justify myself when no-one else has to?

The point about me supposedly reenacting abuse through my job is that the tutors seem to think:
I was abused by men —> identification with the aggressor —> I abuse men —> I’m an abusive person.
This then translates to me being too dangerous to be around vulnerable therapy clients in case I abuse them.

I asked around and no-one else was asked whether their job was a reenactment of abuse dynamics. Apparently, only sex workers reenact abuse through their jobs. Not bankers. Not teachers. Not nurses. Not cops. Not hairdressers. Not therapists. No-one else, but us.

What I did say is that this course is a reenactment of abuse dynamics. Working in offices is a reenactment of abuse dynamics for me and that’s why I choose to work for myself and volunteer and collaborate with other sex workers and queer people. Abuse dynamics are not purely in someone’s head; they’re part of social and political systems. I can’t “work through” patriarchy and acting as if it doesn’t exist would mean I’m insane.

Sex work is one way that I have found to survive capitalism and patriarchy. I now have experiences of being seen and heard, my boundaries being respected, working when I want to and with whomever I want to, enjoying my job, being creative and continuing to learn. I was ignored, harassed and exploited in offices, on wages that had to be supplemented with sex work anyway. You can guess what the suggestion was for me working through my supposed abuse dynamics: go work in an office (the same suggestion as the horrible psychoanalyst last year).

There’s no space for me on this course because I’m not this template person we’re supposed to be and supposed to work with or make our clients become.
There’s no space for me because I work with the body.
There’s no space for me because I live and work in a social and political world.
There’s no space for me because I refuse to give people with more power than me an easy ride on this course when the rest of us continue to suffer.

I’m out of place.

White Men on Psychotherapy Trainings: Allies or Oppressors?

It’s been an eventful start to the term. Aside from letting every person I have contact with know about the dangers of SESTA/FOSTA and the Digital Economy Act, I’ve been being honest about what the experience of doing the course is for someone from a marginalised group and standing up for myself and others who don’t feel able to speak out. Cue attacks by white men.

We have a large experiential group a couple of times each term (41 students and 8 or so tutors). I was already pretty angry when I got to the latest one, after tolerating a group relations conference witnessing and experiencing gross misogyny (and some awful racism from white men towards WOC).

Anyway, my tutor was aware that I was frustrated by the GRC, so when she mentioned in the experiential group that it seemed difficult to talk about difference, I did wonder if she was trying to get me to talk (I find large groups where you’re 100% going to be verbally attacked impossible). Bait or not, I took it and am really quite proud that I got to speak out about the lack of social and political awareness on the course and how othering it is.

I said that I don’t believe my uni is an institution that wants to engage with difference. All our work is about straight, white, cis-gender, middle-age, middle-class, married people with 2.4 kids. That’s the template. Any other difference is an aberration added on top. We’ve had a case study of a gay man who it was no surprise came out as homosexual at university, after all, he had an overbearing mother! He got AIDS and died. Or the “prostitute” (preferred term is actually full service sex worker) who couldn’t possibly have a fulfilling relationship nor sex for love because of her job (and sex always has to be for love!). There was one class on racism during the strike and that’s it for diversity.

A tutor did then interrupt me to tell me the course is part of the psycho-social studies department. To which I replied, psycho-social studies of 50 years ago! I honestly thought she’d understand, it’s so obvious! But she didn’t look impressed.

I spoke in front of everyone about how unfair it is that the most marginalised have to constantly fight to be recognised, how it should be an ethical obligation for the institution to represent these groups, how we don’t exist at all or we are products of abuse. We apparently need to be fixed, so we can be like the template we’ve been learning about. It is painful not to be recognised as human, to be told every week that this template of a person is the type of client you should want to work with and it’s the type of person you’re going to be taught to work with. Everyone else has less value, so they won’t bother teaching us anything about them. If you can work with straight white people, you can work with anyone, apparently.

Now, it is scary to talk up in these groups because, if you’re a woman, you will get verbally attacked by white men, if it’s anything other than agreeing with them (brutally attacked if you’re a black woman). And that is exactly what happened. From all around me, one white man trying to humiliate me, saying what I had to say wasn’t relevant, this is “survival of the fittest”, another saying oppression is all in my head, another saying that these people don’t need to be represented, another saying that people with power don’t want to give up their power for marginalised groups (selfish or what!), another complaining he felt uncomfortable – it was endless. And throughout all this, the tutors said nothing. They are there to comment on the dynamics of the group and they never comment on these dynamics, never the fact that white men gang up on women, particularly black women, when they talk. Maybe they only comment on the dynamics of the group, as long as it doesn’t challenge any hierarchies?

Thankfully, there are Latino, Arabic and some white men in the group who are great allies, ask sincere questions so they can learn more, are open to the fact that they don’t face these challenges and will never have to, and agree that the course should be more inclusive. But, they are not the majority and they are not the loudest voices. I am very grateful they are there though, and I’m always happy to chat about sex work, gender and sexuality stuff with them and anything else that comes up. We need them on our course.

Standing up and fighting back always results in attacks behind my back, but I’m proud that I can stand up and fight back and people did hear me. Nothing will change, but they heard every word I said.

Psychotherapy Training in 2018: This is “Normal” Sexuality

So this week in my course, we had readings on “normal adult sexuality”. Having realised just how visible I am on my course and apparently being the only one out of 41 students willing to challenge this dogma, I decided to go for it.

There’s a general theme in our readings about (hetero) monogamous marriages and babies being the ultimate aim of adulthood (with very specific gender roles attached to that). The one reading I’ll write about here was only from 2015 and was specifically about “normal adult sexuality”. Monogamous marriage was really the only details I could decipher about what was acceptable. The list of abnormal sexual practices she inferred included: masturbation, anything where the person isn’t physically present (so phone sex, porn…), sex without an orgasm, sex when you’re not in love (gimme a break!), hooking up, multiple partners, and of course sex work. The whorephobia made me really angry.

Anyway, I challenged this on our year’s message board and also in class. Some of my classmates were really receptive, which was great, others were quiet, so I don’t know what they thought. My tutor’s response was to listen and acknowledge what I was saying, but she stated that psychoanalysis has a history of traditionally not being very accepting of different sexualities, which is fine, but I don’t think that’s sufficient. I’m the only person out of 41 students who challenged this. So, has anyone in any other years challenged it? Why are we not being taught that other relationship styles, sexualities etc are healthy? Why on earth is anyone writing about “normal” sexuality in this century anyway? I don’t think it’s my duty to have to point out prejudice. If I wasn’t there, then would they be happy that 40 students were now going off to be therapists with a very clear idea of what is normal and what is abnormal sexuality? I don’t think that’s ethical.

Also, I later found out that there were a lot of attacks (verbal) on me by people in the other group and behind my back for challenging the idea of “normal” sexuality. So this means:

1. Interestingly, privileged people aren’t willing to challenge someone from a minority group face-to-face on issues they are uncomfortable with, even when they out-number them 40:1 and they have the weight of the institution behind them.
2. But, maybe that’s because it’s easier to dismiss us, if they don’t engage with us. Just ignore us, pretend we don’t exist and carry on being “normal” and viewing us as pathological.
3. Really upsetting is that people training to be psychotherapists right now do actually believe that the monogamous married couple is the only healthy relationship style. What damage will they do to a client who is kinky, polyamorous, a sex worker etc? Well, I already know because I’ve been in that situation.

It’s a heavy burden to challenge these things all on my own. But, it’s so painful to sit back and let these really destructive lies be taught to us. I can’t get over that it’s 2018 and universities in the UK are teaching trainee psychotherapists what is “normal adult sexuality”. This causes real damage to the people with the least privilege and no-one else acknowledged that fact.

When Sex Work Meets Psychotherapy

Today, I want to give you an insight into the therapeutic side of my sex work. My studies and my sex work are complimentary, so I see it like this: whichever one I’m currently working on, I’m going to be reaping rewards for both – it’s win, win.

I work with men, women and couples and a proportion of my time is spent using what I get from the transference or my counter-transference to steer the session or consider for the next session. It’s a delicate balance, particularly with services like humiliation and degradation, where the erotic can become the traumatic with one poorly chosen remark. Some clients also sadly carry a lot of shame around with them about their kinky desires, so I try to work in a way where they don’t just project it into me and leave. Rather, I hope they can acknowledge it and we discuss it. Believe it or not, erotic humiliation is one way to work through the shame. It gets it out, exaggerates and plays with it, even makes it a bit absurd, and reveals it just to be outside judgment, rather than inside deficiency (and in a fun, sexy way too!). This doesn’t work for everyone, but for some people, verbalising and eroticising the shame is a great way to diminish its destructive power and transform it into pleasure.

With my male clients, I’m often the only person (other than their GP), who knows about their changing medical conditions and medications they are taking, their mental and physical health and sexual concerns. This is necessary for the services I provide, but also, my play space is a safe place to speak about almost anything; the revelations stay in the room.

With the women that visit me, I’m usually the first person they’ve discussed their desires with, or they’ve had an experience with a partner and would like to know more. I really enjoy the exhilaration in that first meeting and in subsequent ones, as we embark on a fun, playful (and educational!) journey together. They teach me about their different lives, relationship styles, how they developed an interest in BDSM, and I share my knowledge. It’s a humbling experience to be trusted with someone’s deepest desires and to be able to explore them together. It’s lovely to work with women too.

Finally, working with couples is definitely the most complex and rewarding side to my sex work. They visit me for certain kinks, but I have to navigate what’s really going on underneath, and often this is unconscious. There’s also the weight of expectation: that I can provide life changing skills/advice in just two hours. I imagine this is a similar situation with which couples therapists are greeted. Couples visit me as a means to admit beliefs and desires to one another that they either haven’t felt able to admit or aren’t even aware of. They visit to discover new ways to relate and understand one another. They also visit with the express desire to seek out female empowerment through BDSM.

Sex work is sex, I’m not denying that, but it is also work. I don’t believe I would be able to work in the sex industry if it was just a series of cold transactions, as it’s often portrayed. I’m certainly not erasing the bodies from this picture. Physical sensation and stimulation, tease and denial, are pivotal, but when you combine that with the psychological side, you create an intimacy that I myself have often missed out on in my private relationships. The sincerity, imperfection and mutability of those connections are some of the reasons that I love my job and what has drawn me to psychotherapy.

That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed reading,

Sex Worker Psych

The Sex Worker & the Psychoanalyst – Stigma in the Therapy Room

The following is an example of how not to treat a sex worker. This happened to me a few weeks ago.

I’m on the hunt for a psychoanalyst at the moment because my uni course requires it. I actually went into the process extremely naively. I’ve vetted previous psychotherapists stringently (checking they’re on Pink Therapy, for a start) and, as such, have never been attacked for my profession. That was about to change, as I have been funnelled into a system where I’ve been pointed towards a short list of “recommended” consultants who would then forward me onto a “suitable” psychoanalyst. And this is where the pathologisation began.

I won’t dwell on the consultation, as I’m sure you don’t want to read a thesis on “what not to say to a sex worker”, but her summation of me was that I “don’t understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy, cruel and kind”. You see, I mainly work in BDSM and, before I could even utter a word about my job (or mention the words consent, intimacy, negotiation, aftercare), she had decided it was abuse, pain, pain, pain – “identification with the aggressor” (or lazy psychoanalysis to you and I).

After a migraine, another session with her and distraught tears in my current psychotherapist’s room, I was off to see the recommended psychoanalyst. The first session was mostly practicalities. It was the second session where it descended into an anti-sex work lecture. Not having spoken about my job yet, I mentioned that I was concerned about the summer break because I have a work-related issue that I may need support for. Cue victim blaming: if I wasn’t a sex worker, I wouldn’t have to suffer this issue (really helpful!). She never actually used the term “sex worker” or anything like that, so I’m still not sure what exactly she thinks I do in the sex industry (I do a lot of different jobs) – maybe it’s all the same: violence against women or something like that.

Anyway, this story precipitated a 20 MINUTE LECTURE on how to get out of the sex industry so I could healthily train to be a psychotherapist: instantly quit the job I really enjoy, move out of the city and away from my friends, get a monotonous, low paid, 40+ hour/week job working for someone else, save up for an eternity and then (once I’m a reformed hooker!) return to psychotherapy.

In amongst this, she expressed her incredulity that I’d got through the interview and onto my course (the consultant was the same), stating that I’d “deceived the interviewer with my False Self”. Let me tell you, I have risked rejection at every point of this process by not presenting myself in a sanitised form, by not lying about who I am. It would have been so much less stressful if I had lied about what I do.

And this brings me to the final insult: pimping. Rather interestingly, the psychoanalyst stated that I saw her as a pimp, sending me out to do terrible things to bring her money. I was dumbfounded by this interpretation – it was so spectacularly inaccurate (but very revealing about her). If I see psychoanalysts as any specific member of the sex industry, it would be as Dominatrices.

There seems to be this inability to understand how a sex worker could be stable enough to handle a psychotherapy course. It’s clearly denial about the remarkable similarities between the two professions.

I’ve written a lot, so I’ll leave this blog with a request. Don’t underestimate how devastating this experience was: someone who I instantly respected, with expertise and experience, who is supposed to be non-judgmental, who is sitting in the chair I want to sit in one day, doing the job I am training for, spends an hour telling me I am so pathological, broken, disturbed, unhealthy that she can’t even understand how I ever thought psychotherapy could be a career for me. She even arranged to tell me this for three hours a week for the next three years at least (because sex workers need “intensive” psychoanalysis). It’s heartbreaking and so very isolating. I’ve had migraines, felt alone and cried a lot, wondering if this world is out of reach purely because of where my fees for my course and my therapy come from.

I survived this, but it’s not difficult to see why so few sex workers are even out to their psychotherapists. If you’ve never knowingly had a client that is a sex worker, if you’re unsure how to respond, feel uneasy, or if you agree with what the psychoanalyst said to me, check yourself and where the judgment is coming from. Or, ask me whatever you need to know. I’m happy to answer sex work-related questions from my perspective or give links to blogs etc. After all, we have more in common than you may expect.

Thanks for reading,

Sex Worker Psych