The Healing Hooker

From John Cleland's Fanny Hill to Jack Kerouac's Tristessa, prostitutes - or sex workers in modern parlance - have often made an appearance in works of fiction. It is, however, Scotland's very own Luke Sutherland who has most impressed me with his depiction of Desiree, a male prostitute, in Venus as a Boy. Desiree's discovery that he can spiritually transform his punters through sex may seem to belong only in the realm of fiction, yet it is closer to reality than one may realise. In recent years, many real-life sex workers, fighting back against the stigma of their profession, have begun to speak out about the positive sides of the sex industry, arguing that the work they do can be considered as 'healing' or 'therapeutic'.

My own views on this topic are, as always, ambivalent. In two years of being an erotic masseuse, I have certainly come across clients whose lives I touched in some meaningful way. Lonely men have left my massage room feeling less isolated; the shy have left with a little more confidence; the unhappily married with a release of tension and anxiety. One of my most memorable clients was a social worker who was unable to sleep with his wife because her body was ravaged by the pain of chronic MS. This man clearly loved his wife and looked after her to the point of exhaustion, and yet he had sexual needs which could not be met at home. I was more than happy to help this man relax, and after he left I felt good about myself and the service I provided.

For every client like this, though, there are countless others who just want to get their rocks off in their lunch hour. It's not for me to judge whether these men are spiritually and morally bereft but, if they are, I seriously doubt that a quick handjob is suddenly going to transport them to a new plane of spiritual awareness. The power of touch should not be underestimated, but it can only be as meaningful as my clients want or allow it to be, and, for this reason, I find it hard to see my profession as 'healing'.

It is perhaps understandable that many sex workers now choose to interpret their services in a more positive light. After all, if we were to believe the media hype (that we're all 'home-wreckers', 'abused victims', 'mentally and morally unsound') we'd probably never have the strength to get out of bed in the morning. Viewing ourselves as offering a therapeutic service helps boost our self-esteem. I am, however, uncomfortable thinking of myself as 'nurturing' my clients, because this smacks of gender stereotyping. Women have traditionally always been caretakers (mothers, nurses, teachers, etc) and I fail to see why, as sex workers, we must also display such self-sacrificing characteristics.

I enjoy meeting my clients and am genuinely interested in their lives but, ultimately, I'm only in this for the money, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. If I can help some men along the way, then all the better - but that certainly wasn't my main motivation. I just wanted to earn as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, to pay for my education. I find it hard to believe that any sex workers could have entered the profession with a more altruistic and selfless outlook than I did. After all, it's unlikely there will ever come a day when fresh-faced college students are lining up to spend their gap year as members of 'Handjobs without Frontiers'.