Queer Whore Collective: Protests for Prostitutes
March is a month that is full of protest, on the lead up to International Women’s day (8th March) you can hardly move through city streets without bumping into a group of women protesting patriarchy. Whores are seldom invited to these shows of solidarity, in fact quite often we’re explicitly left off the guest list, our very presence can be enough (apparently) to confirm the hold that patriarchy has over society. Us poor broken hookers, with our poor broken bodies, and poor broken childhoods aren’t considered an acceptable addition to the movement when we’re asking for rights.
We host our own, of course. No one throws a protest like prostitutes, we use our bodies in ways that have feminists screaming at our complicity with patriarchy, I’ve honestly never known one group of people get so upset at bare flesh. They can scream all they want, nudity certainly helps to pull a crowd. The issue is, those of us who take to the streets - all bare flesh, loud voices and smoke cannons - are the ones for whom visibility comes easy. For some, visibility can be fatal. I say that with no irony, no exaggeration - for some whores, visibility kills. We lose our lives by the hands of men, but also by the hand of the state. Poverty is and always will be the most prolific serial killer. There’s a rumour that floats around that sex work is the largest direct transfer of wealth from rich to poor. I’ve never quite caught the source of this elusive fact; like so many aspects of the industry, it’s not easily accessible. Maybe it’s not even correct - I’ve heard it and spoken it so many times that maybe it’s just been willed into truthfulness. If we take this as fact, though, then we can see why the vast majority of the sex work population gets left out of marches… because famously poor people are excluded from loud and shouty movements.
When I listen to the activists that host these marches, I struggle to relate. I’ve always found activist a strange word. I’ve played with it and turned it over in my head, but no matter what way I manipulate it, I’ve never found it quite works for me. We live in a strange moment where most people’s idea of activism focuses on what you present to the world, but the activism I know from existing within the sex worker community isn’t one that is profiled loudly. Mainly because whore activism is providing support and care to total strangers. We’ve formulated our own ways of communicating and building community without ever having to meet one another. In fact, I can say hand on heart that I don’t even know the real names of most sex workers I engage with. The most important thing about these communities that we have built, is that in these spaces it is not just okay, but actively encouraged to ask for help. Unlike the state, our handouts don’t come with reels of paperwork - there’s no job search diaries at the Department of Whore Affairs.
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Whore activism stems from keeping one another alive. On a daily basis we check clients numbers against databases, check in and out of bookings with one another, provide advice on sexual and mental health clinics. We provide information and advice that can’t be found with a simple Google search - if you ever need advice on how to get a sponge that has wedged itself behind your cervix out, whores will be able to give you five different methods to try, trust me. We signpost to services that help with poverty, gender identity and housing, we buy each other's art and we celebrate each other's successes. If one of us needs money, we provide it as quickly as we possibly can, as a collective. Honestly, what did we do before cash apps?
“I share what I feel I can in a way that ensures it is my experiences that are visible, not me.”
Keeping one another alive allows us to focus on the next steps of whore activism - helping one another to thrive. Queer Whore Collective was originally founded as we were acutely aware that a lot of the whores that we came into contact with spend the time between bookings creating. We’re a group of over 50 creatives from all over the world (in countries where sex work ranges in its degree of legality, from fully to partly criminalised) - we are artists, illustrators, poets, photographers, writers and more. As queer people we had already found a connection to one another from a shared awareness of what it is to work in an industry that focuses heterosexuality, in both branding and practice. But we also have a unique understanding of what it means to have to survive in a job which drains all of your energy whilst trying to find the space in our brains to allow art to happen. Queer Whore Collective exists to build a community that helps us to individually make space for art. We share thoughts and inspiration as well as our own work and opportunities to create. As many of us are poor, we don’t have access to institutions and networking opportunities that so many artists find themselves privy too. The vast majority of us also work under aliases, and are not ‘face out’- meaning that we hide our sex working from those who know us. This makes trying to build a career in the creative industries difficult and shuts off many opportunities for us. I know that for me I own my story, I will not allow it to be exploited in order to sell more units.
As a collective we draw on our shared experiences and focus on finding ways to infiltrate the creative industries and cultural institutions, whilst being able to control how much of our own stories we share. In the two years that we have been active we have shared our work through social media, appeared on podcasts, written for publications and published zines - one of which is currently being sold at the ICA. Proof that we can infiltrate cultural institutions using our own methods. Our words and artwork sitting within the same walls that Damien Hirst, Jacques Derrida and David Bowie were given the opportunity to showcase their practice.
As a writer and a member of the collective I have found that I’ve been able to tap into my own sense of ‘activism’ through my work. Whilst I struggle to take to the streets as a fully fledged whore, a pen name allows me to commit to activism through art. In 2019 I started an instagram page with a fellow sex worker - we called it Whores Handbags. On this page we share images of items that we carry around with us and we use our writing to explore and process our experiences within this work. It’s a small space of the internet that many often write off as vapid and self-serving, maybe it is, but the anonymity has allowed me to share honestly and openly. Most creatives make themselves vulnerable in order to sell art, but it’s difficult to make yourself vulnerable when your very existence as a sex worker already places you in danger. Vulnerability for us isn’t a choice, it’s a workplace hazard. It dictates our safety and plays games with our mental health. Unlike non-sex working writers whose work examines their own experiences, I don’t offer myself up on a plate stating that ‘vulnerability is bravery’, I explain my reality, and that reality is precarious. It is through this writing that I feel comfortable within my role as an activist as I expose myself in a way that feels comfortable to me. Not because an editor has told me it will sell better, not because I want to grab the attention of those who refuse to include us in their movements and not because I’m trying to get men to pay to have sex with me. I share what I feel I can in a way that ensures it is my experiences that are visible, not me.
Annabelle is a sex worker and writer. The former pays the bills, the latter keeps her heart full. She’s a Londoner whose work is inspired by the city, the experience of touch and the structure of power. You can catch more of her writing at @whores_handbags.
