A student, who wishes to remain anonymous, is hacked off by the media's representation of the sex industry following Belle de Jour's unmasking

Two years ago I was working as a lap dancer in one of the city's ubiquitous strip clubs, a job which meant I could pay for my studies (or more specifically my rent, food and bills) while also affording me the copious amounts of free time required to participate in an extra-curricular arena normally reserved for middle class kids unencumbered by boring issues like money or part-time jobs (student journalism).

During an evening out with my fellow student hacks, I mentioned my job to one - particularly posh - amateur reporter. She had recently written a story on the 'phenomenon' of student strippers and seemed dismayed when I mentioned where I was working.

"Oh, they have prostitute rings in that club" she mewed. (They didn't.) Then: "well, I know because I did a story on it" (I had worked there for a year and never did spot these fabled rings of prostitutes).

This attitude, in which journalists assume a stance of pig-headed omniscience when commenting on sex work, is all too prevalent within popular media reporting on sex workers. Consequently, the image of sex workers as downtrodden, drug-addled trainwrecks is maintained by a group of people in possession of what is at best a peripheral knowledge of sex work, at worst a mishmash of hackneyed stereotypes.

Following last week's revelation that prostitute-blogger Belle de Jour was a research scientist who funded her PhD through escorting, the mainstream media's treatment of Dr Brooke Magnanti has proved more shocking than anything she ever did for cash.

Like stripper turned screenwriter Diablo Cody before her, the 34-year-old has incensed commentators by the lack of tragedy in her story. On top of that, although they might not say it, people don't want sex workers to be clever. Or witty, or three-dimensional. There's something so much more palatable in choosing to believe that the handful of women who sell sex for money are doing it because they have been coerced into it (which is probably why exaggerating statistics on trafficking is so popular). The more choice involved, the less comfortable everyone is. Newspapers - even your beloved liberal broadsheets like The Guardian - like things fairly black and white. It sells better, keeps everything nice and simple.

Above all, the media don't want these women to speak unless it's to pour out a saleable story of drug addiction, sexual abuse and exploitation. Much easier to speak for them, as Daily Mail columnist Bel Mooney did last week in a breathtakingly obnoxious attack on Magnanti. Criticising her for her failure to apologise for the suffering of sex workers the world over, Mooney wrote: '[Magnanti's] complacency makes me deeply queasy. "Look, of course trafficking occurs. It's awful. Awful. Desperate," she trills, as if she had any knowledge at all of the terrible, dark world of sexual exploitation endured by thousands of women, who were often prostituted in childhood.'

Presumably, Mooney - who has never, as far as I can tell, worked as a prostitute or any other category of sex worker - has a detailed knowledge of the inner workings of this world that extends far beyond anything Magnanti knows from her year of employment in the industry. The title of this column 'How can such a clever woman be so stupidly naive?' could quite easily be referring to its author.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I know that it is a small minority of journalists who will consciously avoid bending facts and twisting quotes until they can be shoehorned satisfyingly into the story they're after. In a recent blog post last Saturday, Magnanti coolly remarked that her detractors' behaviour 'reminded me of something we used to say, that inside most porn actresses is a failed real actress. Inside every tabloid hackette is a not-very-bright girl who dreamed of being Kate Adie but didn't have the work ethic or talent to make it happen. Journalists my sweet Tallahassee ass. You are to historical record what my books are to fine literature.'

Although as a stripper, my experiences were considerably different in nature to Magnanti's, her encounters with the press are reminiscent of my own. Despite my peers' distaste for sex work, in spite of the fact that its mere mention in conversation has the power to induce red-cheeked silence, every summer, without fail, I will receive the same call from a student journalist on work experience who, desperate to impress the editor, has seized upon their sole link to The Seedy World of Strip Clubs. Last summer it was the Mail on Sunday, the year prior to that it was Vice Magazine and the year before that I believe it was the Evening News. The girl calling from the Mail had been instructed to offer money for my story. The shameless greed and voyeurism behind this gesture revolted me and made me feel more exploited than I did in work (note to eager FemSoc readers: that's not an admission to feeling empowered, just that the exploitation was considerably more calculated).

Newspaper editors cream themselves at the prospect of an honest, first-person account of sex work. Unfortunately, if the story doesn't fit within the comfortable parameters demanded (low self-esteem/father issues/sexual abuse) their version is declared worthless. Until more people reveal themselves, the onus is inexplicably on Dr Magnanti to act as some kind of representative for every mistreated sex worker in the land. Yet, with the verbal battering she's taken, it's easy to see why the rest of us won't be so forthcoming.

 Published 24 November 2009

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Overdue Shaun (86.177.227.xxx) 2009-12-18 18:45:20 I'm impressed that someone has had the courage to step forward and suggest that the media perception of the young, naive girl driven to the sex industry by her hopeless past isn't always the reality of the situation. This article speaks the truth in many respects, and stands as a bold critique to our dangerous social preconceptions. Reply 0   0

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