Being able to call The People's Letters "my bookshop" and say I am a "bookshop owner" has such a legitimizing effect on my speech in many people's eyes. Especially professional spaces and in the charity sector. I am both so grateful and deeply resentful.
Why do whores also have to be small business owners and writers and do years of unpaid peer support through organisations and charities before our voices are deemed legitimate enough to speak to our experiences selling sex. By definition, this limits the sex workers you hear from to veterans in the activist movement who may or may not even be selling much sex at the point you let them speak!
I had things to say when I worked 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off at a brothel, seeing half a dozen clients a day while doing coke and recovering from my first and most traumatizing instances of being raped. Comparatively, I see so many fewer clients now and they're all outcalls instead of brothel customers. Obviously I remember what it was like and am surrounded by hookers still working in them, and I do think my politics are far better now than they were then, but I deserved to be listened to back then as well.
