The second piece in our series of sex worker writing is from Aleisha, speaking about her experiences of being in the sex industry as a mixed race care leaver.
Image by Sophie Bass Illustration.
My journey into sex work begun back in 2010. I am a care-leaver, I had been in foster care and adopted. I had been let down by social services and abandoned by my adopted family. My birth family were not available to help me and the statutory services did very little to help.
At this time, I was alone. I had given up a very much loved career in make-up due to domestic abuse and coercion. Back in the village I grew up in, I found myself on benefits, under a mental health team who insisted that I had borderline personality disorder yet was somehow to blame for it.
After a very scary attack by a gang of men who were part of a county lines gang, I found myself fleeing to live in a women’s refuge. Shortly after that, the refuge let me down too. I was moved into a housing association surrounded by men mainly on drugs and at that time desperate to just survive. Contemplating how to make money “quick” I recalled a TV series called “secret diary of a call girl”. I had very little money, nobody to support me and it was at this moment I decided to get into sex work. This would not have surprised my adopted mum who one day when I was around 15 very angrily told me I would probably end up as a prostitute.
I googled support for sex workers and found an amazing website called SAAFE. I figured this was a job like any other so I should do some research. I bought a couple of sex worker books online, one called “The happy hooker”. Then, I set myself up on adult work and began working.
I loved it! It was easy money and fun. I dressed nicer and felt more in control of my life. I was out buying beautiful lingerie thinking to myself that I would rather be paid for sex than get used with t nothing to show for it. I also found a massage parlour to work from – until the owner decided not to pay me one day and tried to give me dinner instead, after which I walked out.
…I’m not into human slavery!
As a mixed race careleaver it’s very hard to find people I can open up to and trust. I grew up in transracial adoption which is not common. As someone who is marginalised, classed as vulnerable and disabled I face extra risks and pressures. It can be a very lonely and scary life. I decided I needed to get some support, and was helped by a charity for sex workers in Hampshire. Here they put me in touch with a nun!!
She was lovely to talk to but, of course, you always felt they wished you were not doing this kind of work and that they really wanted to “save you”. Once they attempted to send me off to a Christian cult called “Hope City church”. I left one week later and found myself reading about them in the papers some years later. Turns out I had a very lucky escape.
I found myself getting mentally unwell and adult work deleted my account over a rule which I didn’t even know was a rule. Same old story. Consequently I lost all my clients and my great reviews. Oh… and again I had no money.
I found myself back in Essex after several suicide attempts and hospital visits and was told by my housing I was being evicted. Lost and alone and with no money, living near a family who could not stand me.
Not once in my life have I had a support network or a stable home. Like always, nobody was there to help me
I tried reaching out to a few sex worker charities while in Essex and London. Only one helped but in the end they gave up on me in quite an unfair and mean way. I can’t believe how some charity workers can be so heartless. When you are a minority, you already feel unheard, alone, misunderstood and judged. Your worst fears of abandonment and rejection are constantly coming true.
I went to a sex worker rally in London. When trying to talk to an organisation there I was made to feel faceless, like I was just a number in the system and not a real human being. The feeling of being shunned and ignored the whole day was a lonely and demoralising feeling. Then I looked around and noticed that only 1 other person of colour was there. So where are we all? Nobody talked to me expect for one other person of colour or even noticed me. It felt like I was invisible.
I thought to myself, “Do BAME sex workers not even matter?”
For some years due to a massive failing from multiple mental health trusts, police and charities.I found myself invited into a world of campaigning and activism. Some of my tweets went viral, which led to me getting my story out in the papers. Working with journalists was so fun I decided to become one myself!
I’m now on a journalism course. Well, I’m on 2 actually. And my dream is to get all my thoughts and stories printed one day to write a book! Maybe to be on tv and the radio. I dream of having a more stable life. Of earning good money for once. Of being treated like a respectable human being. To make enough money to buy a home for me and my babies. To leave the money and my legacy behind to my two children who I hope will not have to worry about money like I have for my whole life. Who knows? Maybe one day I will have my journalist husband, a house and children like I dreamt of when I was a child.
Care-leavers who do sex work are real people and we deserve to be seen, heard and listened to. We all have a story but some are hard to hear. All of us have suffered racism. Not getting jobs due to our skin colour. Being treated like a criminal. Ignored. Not being given a home. Denied our human rights. I’m sure many of us feel more in control when in the sex industry. And that’s very sad!!
If I can pave the way for BAME people , care-leavers and disabled people and give others the confidence to do the same. Or even just not feeling they are alone, then I’ve done what I set out to do.
I wish people would understand what it’s like to be in our shoes. Please don’t ignore us. Be friendly, talk to us, don’t judge us, support us, be our allies, and most of all be consistent.