Every Ho I Know Says So

EVERY HO I KNOW SAYS SO is a response to the total lack of accessible online resources for people looking for advice on how to be a good date or lover or partner to a sex worker. We want to support our lovers to continue unlearning the internalized stigma against sex workers, especially in intimate relationships. We think that sex workers themselves have valuable advice and direction to give to people who get into intimate relationships with us. This is the direct message we want to give to our lovers: "We hope that this video is useful to you in your journey to becoming a sex worker-positive and supportive lover and person in the community!!! By continuing to work on your attitudes about our work and educating yourself, you are showing us that you care. We love you!"

*** WEBSITE COMMING SOON*** The website is going to include a forum and a page for more sex workers to add their advice/opinions/insight to the project in video, audio, or writen form.

• Category

  Nonprofits & Activism

[Kimberella69]

Brilliant, easy to understand. It very much opens up the possibility of dating a sex worker to my consciousness. Thank you for your public service.

[TeeandEssYES]

This is such a wonderful and informative video. I hope that this brings a bit of knowledge or opens doors mentally to new ideas of sex work. Thank you.

[Tamara Desiatov]

definitely need support for partners of sex workers!!!! so they don't feel alone and supported. great vid and idea

[barryschwarz]

Just as I would advise a sex worker that there is nothing wrong with leaving a partner who cannot accept their line of work, I would advise that it is likewise not wrong, weak or ungenerous to separate from a partner working in the industry if you can't take it on an emotional level.

I support sex workers to work safely in the manner they choose, free of stigma and judgementalism. I also support people who may struggle with their partner's choice of work. Above all, respect each other.

[barryschwarz]

I apologise for a series of posts on this. I guess I'm reaching out in my own way to sex workers and especially their partners who don't work in the industry. I had nowhere to go to seek advice, and I think that is still the case. A worker in the video wanted to know her lover's insecurities. While this is a good idea, I also know that exposing these insecurities can also make you less attractive. Which loops back into the insecurities themselves. Be honest, but also brave and loving.

[barryschwarz]

I know that it is possible to have a loving relationship with a sex worker, and that it is not easy, because sex work is about intimacy of one form or another, or many, and that this is a challenge to romantic relationships. There's no hotline, no outreach for partners. If you can't handle it you must say so. For me, I spent a lot of time hurting, but accepted that as my lot until she stopped working. Because I loved her.

[barryschwarz]

I feared she would lose some innocence and that I would grieve over it, that she would become sexually empowered (and she did) and I would be diminished in her eyes, that something in her would harden, become calloused from making intimacy a commodity.

It was always a challenge, and we both did our best, with all the love and selfishness and good intentions that people have.

I think it is a shame that there is not more outreach for partners of sex workers who themselves don't do sex work.

[barryschwarz]

My lover - my sweetheart - took the approach of a social worker with a big heart. She confirmed my guess that most of her clients were looking for intimacy, and she did her best to give them that. I found that to be wonderfully generous on the one hand, and saddening on the other. Could she not just see them as 'Johns' who made use of her body and went on their way? I would have preferred she had a more distant relationship with them, but I didn't make that an issue with her.

[barryschwarz]

She tried to share her thoughts and approach to the job, her clients, even in the face of my unpredictable responses. Sometimes I was glad I was included in her secret life and felt closer to her. Sometimes I was threatened by it.

There is no formula. Judging from the video above, sex workers have different attitudes - some said it's just a job with little meaning beyond money-making, another worker said her partner needed to accept that some of the experiences she had were 'amazing.'

[barryschwarz]

I felt she had betrayed our intimacy by not sharing her deliberations and decision with me beforehand. She was sympathetic to my hurts. I understood that she wanted to get rid of a debt that had tied her to two jobs (now three) for years, when she wanted to study - she was pulling 60 hour weeks and wanted it to stop.

We loved each other. For me that meant being open about my feelings and being careful to love her and support her even as I showed her my insecurities and fears and darkness.

[barryschwarz]

Many years ago my then girlfriend signed up with an outcall agency. She told me the next day. If it was any other job it would not have mattered. Nothing to do with morality or social attitudes. I was afraid of how it would change our intimate life. We were in an open relationship. She said that taking on work in the sex industry was the same as being in a non-exclusive relationship, that it was hypocritical of me to react negatively to her decision.

[1313kaden]

love love love