This article seems to be nothing more than “the publisher of this singluar project failed to seek final approval from one of the subjects it features”. Is this really a case for a woeful, industry-wide conspiracy about exploitation of strippers, or just incompetence from the publisher? 1000s of biographies get produced where key, consuenting, subjects are not paid. How is this even shocking? And why are there no quotes from the aforementioned publisher to provide some balance? One feels this is just a writer with an axe to grind…
In fairness, Kat included quotes from WYtWM in last months article which she linked to above. I read this not as axe grinding, just her being made aware of an important perspective she’d missed when writing her earlier article concerning WYtWM, which was quite positive, and wanting to correct that.
Martin Bollis
1 year ago
Or maybe, a stripper who’s seen her Onlyfans income soar after book exposure, spins a new angle to exploit a journalist with a following, as part of her ongoing profile build?
Of course, said journalist also enhances her profile as a non sex positive feminist, by exploiting a new angle on a stripper story.
Really who knows? Both professions (opinion piece journalism and stripping) seem to come from the same moral strata.
Thanks for a stimulating read. Rather bizarre for a pair of former strippers who benefited from an education in the arts to lack the insight to know a woman values her mystery in that line of work, and hence ensure they anonymise those still active. It was quite reasonable of Bex to assume the book would be more of a pamphlet type thing. Back in Feb good Julie Bindel wrote an article here about the Decriminalized Futures event. I was invited to the review night for that by SWARM, as I’d donated quite a bit back in the early days of the pandemic to fund their work helping those who has suddenly lost their livelihood. Anyway, DF was mainly a collection of minor art works, but there was literally about 100 different pamphlets on offer, which like WYtWM concerned sex workers telling their stories in their own words. Most of them probably only get read by a few hundred folk at most – Bex was quite unlucky to feature in one of the few books to hit the big time.
I think you get the same thing during other historical ‘gluts’ in works focussed on sex work. E.g a while back I was reading ‘Figures of Ill Repute: Representing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century France’ where it talks about a surge of famous works from the likes of Victor Hugo, Eugène Sue , Dumas, Balzac & Zola – but these were vastly outnumbered by minor works featuring prostitutes that are now totally forgotten. I understand the same thing happened even back in ancient Greece. Though the big difference back then is that there was no general presumption that sex workers were likely to be morally questionable. Hetarai like Aspasia, Thargelia , Archeanassa and many others often married or entered LTRs elite men, and this was described as a good thing by philosophers like Plutarch. The shift to sex workers being seen in a mostly negative light happened in ancient Rome, and seems to have persisted to this day, with this article hinting at reasons why the recent pro sex work tendency hasn’t yet been as successful at dispelling that as one might have thought. Anyway, nice to have something diverting to read after all the nonsense about Boris. I mean, I understand why many Tories don’t like him, but its annoying he’s getting near universal one sided attacks from the Left. Strong on climate, balanced on Covid, good on Ukraine, and outdoing Labours plans with elements of his tax & spend. But the Left acting like he’s the devil incarnate.
A stimulating read? Interesting choice of words. What would Freud have said?
Mikis Hasson
1 year ago
This article is another woke belief in the idolization of victimhood. She was an adult, she gave the interviews voluntarily like everybody else and she should have made sure or put terms on the agreement rather than “assuming”. She is no victim, just another person not taking responsibility for her choices and actions and looking for someone to blame. The writer just glorifies and tries to cause sympathy for her chosen “victim”. And then she will look for another”victim” to champion. Boring!
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Stripping belongs to her and nobody else? Well sure, if she did it at home in front of a mirror. On stage in front of a paying audience she belongs to the punters, elegant cheekbones and all.
Aphrodite Rises
1 year ago
Is this article exploitation of the stripper? The author earned money from the article. Her tone of moral superiority is irritating. Writers/ journalists steal ideas all the time. Does the author have any genuine compassion for the stripper? The stripper’s objection seems to be she has accidentally given away something she could have sold. She sells the illusion of physical intimacy and objects to her words, which she considers to be genuine intimacy, having been used without receiving a cut. There is something deeply, deeply wrong here and at the moment, I don’t understand what, but it is a case of both women getting their moral knickers, if they are wearing any, in a twist.
I think we can safely assume Kat paid the stripper for her interview unlike the author of the book. I can’t see the stripper being bitten twice for her naivety.
I think the point of the article is the irony that the only person the stripper feels has exploited her is the author of the book which was supposed to highlight strippers being exploited by the sex trade, which again is also something she doesn’t believe herself working in.
Not a moral issue then. It is all about the money. The author is effectively collaborating with the stripper to make money out of her resentment. Though, no doubt, the author receives the larger cut. The fact she is a stripper makes the article salacious and more marketable. Hence the photo.
I also found your reply quite stimulating 🙂 . Just as scepticism & irritation re the moral overtones are such a dominant part of contemporary mainstream culture. I’d say for sure Kat has genuine compassion for the stripper. She’ll also be thinking of number 1 too. Even the best of us are like this. It’s the old “Double thoughts” thing that Dostoevsky treats so well. He even has his Christ like Prince Myskin admit that every time he contemplates actions motivated by compassion for others, he also thinks about how said actions will effect his own interests.
This brings me back to Boris. Everyone making such a big deal about how he’s not a paragon of virtue, and that this means he’s always been unfit for office. As if it’s possible these days to make it past councillor level while playing everything with a straight bat. It’s not, and partly as an exceptionally ethical and high integrity person always provokes the same sort of scepticism & irritation at their supposed moral posturing examplified by your post.
Personally, I have far more compassion for workers on minimum wage than successful strippers with accentuated cheekbones, but there is not much eroticism in shelf stacking, very little moral posturing available and it’s hard to create a titillating photo.
As to Boris, I would prefer an effective, efficient leader with some moral failings (within reason) as opposed to the preachy, woke, desperate to let everyone know they occupy the moral high ground, politician or politically hopeful. I think most people are like that. They care about inflation and the standard of living, being able to support themselves and their families.
I think there are very interesting discussions to be had on the concept of privacy and the sex trade.
Other people choosing prostitution or stripping as a form of employment doesn’t bother me at all but I would never call for its destigmatisation because I would never encourage those dear to me to become sex workers and my attitude towards sex work is clearly stigmatising.
Fair play. Im sure most are like that too, based on many thousands of doors Ive knocked on in my more active political days. Hence saying your response reflects the prevailing mainstream. And yeah, I guess it could be unbearable to think too long about how tough it is right now to be on min wage with 10% inflation. (Though for age 23+ min wage went up by a record amount in April, which was expected to be inflation busting back when Boris helped get the rise in the queue last year.) Good thing about unherd is a greater than normal share both below & above the line seem to care about that sort of thing. E.g. writer Mathew Crawthord is great on how low pay / manual work can still be dignified & rewarding in his Shop craft as soul craft. Best writer on this was probably my mistress Simone Weil, in her ‘The Need for roots’, where she talks about how with the right outlook (& often support from the boss class) both Factory & Farm workers can have their working lives lit up by poety. And permeated by that one love even greater than eros, the love of God. Though there can be eroticism in several minimum wage jobs. To give a non obvious example, said farm workers could see the wind blowing across the fields as caresses for a lover. And even tiltiliating when it seems like the wheat is being dragged by her golden hair into the dark wood beyond. Though as you say hard to capture that in a pic.
jane baker
1 year ago
This working woman has got her name out there so maybe good for bookings. Hot from Paris eh! Ooh la la. Are these ladies really “in control” with the dafty men at their mercy. Only they are the ones.cavorting about while the stupid men have got the money,the cash or whatever,about them,in their pockets,in their wallets,under their control. I don’t call that being powerful.
Ray Ward
1 year ago
I have the book Wanting You to Want Me, and have just reread Bex’s two contributions. The authors and publishers should, perhaps, have given the contributors the chance to see their interviews, but they must have been perfectly well aware that anything they said might be published, and Bex’s apparent belief that she expected any resulting publication to be no more than a pamphlet seems decidedly odd. Anyone with any experience of the media (and she appears to have some) will be well aware they publish or broadcast anything and everything they like, and be careful about saying anything they’d rather not be seen or heard by others. (The publishers do black out club names, including the one in Soho where Bex worked, but utterly pointlessly, since its name is visible in photos, and even if it weren’t, no-one who knows it would have any difficulty in identifying it from the photos and description as the oldest and best-known such place there.)
Bex is obviously intelligent (she got a law degree, she tells us), but her interviews come across as sadly crude, with irritating frequent repetition of a word I won’t quote, since maybe Unherd bans it – three times in one paragraph, including twice in two lines. She says at the end of her second interview: “All I want to do is get my tits out and make money”, and that is not something I would consider in any way reprehensible; on the contrary, I would strongly defend her or any woman’s right to do so, with, of course, her full, free, voluntary consent. But don’t complain when things you obviously knew would be made public appear in public. I entirely agree with Mikis Hasson: “She was an adult, she gave the interviews voluntarily like everybody else and she should have made sure or put terms on the agreement rather than ‘assuming’. She is no victim, just another person not taking responsibility for her choices and actions and looking for someone to blame”, and his words could apply to many other women who make money from sex and then moan about how much they regret doing it.
Last edited 1 year ago by Ray Ward
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
would any person in possession of his faculties, pay to watch others eat a gourmet lunch or dinner? … no… ditto strippers..
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago
Woman gives interview she regrets, not least because she wasn’t paid for it. I have to fight back the tears.
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago
So stripping can now ‘serve as a launchpad to greater things‘ such as activism. There’s an interesting thought. Activism as a self-publicising career move. Who knew?
This article seems to be nothing more than “the publisher of this singluar project failed to seek final approval from one of the subjects it features”. Is this really a case for a woeful, industry-wide conspiracy about exploitation of strippers, or just incompetence from the publisher? 1000s of biographies get produced where key, consuenting, subjects are not paid. How is this even shocking? And why are there no quotes from the aforementioned publisher to provide some balance? One feels this is just a writer with an axe to grind…
In fairness, Kat included quotes from WYtWM in last months article which she linked to above. I read this not as axe grinding, just her being made aware of an important perspective she’d missed when writing her earlier article concerning WYtWM, which was quite positive, and wanting to correct that.
Or maybe, a stripper who’s seen her Onlyfans income soar after book exposure, spins a new angle to exploit a journalist with a following, as part of her ongoing profile build?
Of course, said journalist also enhances her profile as a non sex positive feminist, by exploiting a new angle on a stripper story.
Really who knows? Both professions (opinion piece journalism and stripping) seem to come from the same moral strata.
To what moral stratum does the commenter belong? (Asking for a friend.)
It’s a good point. My experience is that looking up at a stripper is the most fun. Obviously, one can only look down at a journalist.
It seems I’m in a jam … stratum.
I don’t use onlyfans or have a profile. Happy to fade back into obscurity. Interesting theory though .
A reminder that these articles are about real people.
My apologies. I wish you well.
Thank you Martin. All the best
See my general comments.
Thanks for a stimulating read. Rather bizarre for a pair of former strippers who benefited from an education in the arts to lack the insight to know a woman values her mystery in that line of work, and hence ensure they anonymise those still active. It was quite reasonable of Bex to assume the book would be more of a pamphlet type thing. Back in Feb good Julie Bindel wrote an article here about the Decriminalized Futures event. I was invited to the review night for that by SWARM, as I’d donated quite a bit back in the early days of the pandemic to fund their work helping those who has suddenly lost their livelihood. Anyway, DF was mainly a collection of minor art works, but there was literally about 100 different pamphlets on offer, which like WYtWM concerned sex workers telling their stories in their own words. Most of them probably only get read by a few hundred folk at most – Bex was quite unlucky to feature in one of the few books to hit the big time.
I think you get the same thing during other historical ‘gluts’ in works focussed on sex work. E.g a while back I was reading ‘Figures of Ill Repute: Representing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century France’ where it talks about a surge of famous works from the likes of Victor Hugo, Eugène Sue , Dumas, Balzac & Zola – but these were vastly outnumbered by minor works featuring prostitutes that are now totally forgotten. I understand the same thing happened even back in ancient Greece. Though the big difference back then is that there was no general presumption that sex workers were likely to be morally questionable. Hetarai like Aspasia, Thargelia , Archeanassa and many others often married or entered LTRs elite men, and this was described as a good thing by philosophers like Plutarch. The shift to sex workers being seen in a mostly negative light happened in ancient Rome, and seems to have persisted to this day, with this article hinting at reasons why the recent pro sex work tendency hasn’t yet been as successful at dispelling that as one might have thought. Anyway, nice to have something diverting to read after all the nonsense about Boris. I mean, I understand why many Tories don’t like him, but its annoying he’s getting near universal one sided attacks from the Left. Strong on climate, balanced on Covid, good on Ukraine, and outdoing Labours plans with elements of his tax & spend. But the Left acting like he’s the devil incarnate.
A stimulating read? Interesting choice of words. What would Freud have said?
This article is another woke belief in the idolization of victimhood. She was an adult, she gave the interviews voluntarily like everybody else and she should have made sure or put terms on the agreement rather than “assuming”. She is no victim, just another person not taking responsibility for her choices and actions and looking for someone to blame. The writer just glorifies and tries to cause sympathy for her chosen “victim”. And then she will look for another”victim” to champion. Boring!
Stripping belongs to her and nobody else? Well sure, if she did it at home in front of a mirror. On stage in front of a paying audience she belongs to the punters, elegant cheekbones and all.
Is this article exploitation of the stripper? The author earned money from the article. Her tone of moral superiority is irritating. Writers/ journalists steal ideas all the time. Does the author have any genuine compassion for the stripper? The stripper’s objection seems to be she has accidentally given away something she could have sold. She sells the illusion of physical intimacy and objects to her words, which she considers to be genuine intimacy, having been used without receiving a cut. There is something deeply, deeply wrong here and at the moment, I don’t understand what, but it is a case of both women getting their moral knickers, if they are wearing any, in a twist.
I think we can safely assume Kat paid the stripper for her interview unlike the author of the book. I can’t see the stripper being bitten twice for her naivety.
I think the point of the article is the irony that the only person the stripper feels has exploited her is the author of the book which was supposed to highlight strippers being exploited by the sex trade, which again is also something she doesn’t believe herself working in.
Not a moral issue then. It is all about the money. The author is effectively collaborating with the stripper to make money out of her resentment. Though, no doubt, the author receives the larger cut. The fact she is a stripper makes the article salacious and more marketable. Hence the photo.
Essentially, both the article and stripping make money out of sex.
I also found your reply quite stimulating 🙂 . Just as scepticism & irritation re the moral overtones are such a dominant part of contemporary mainstream culture. I’d say for sure Kat has genuine compassion for the stripper. She’ll also be thinking of number 1 too. Even the best of us are like this. It’s the old “Double thoughts” thing that Dostoevsky treats so well. He even has his Christ like Prince Myskin admit that every time he contemplates actions motivated by compassion for others, he also thinks about how said actions will effect his own interests.
This brings me back to Boris. Everyone making such a big deal about how he’s not a paragon of virtue, and that this means he’s always been unfit for office. As if it’s possible these days to make it past councillor level while playing everything with a straight bat. It’s not, and partly as an exceptionally ethical and high integrity person always provokes the same sort of scepticism & irritation at their supposed moral posturing examplified by your post.
Personally, I have far more compassion for workers on minimum wage than successful strippers with accentuated cheekbones, but there is not much eroticism in shelf stacking, very little moral posturing available and it’s hard to create a titillating photo.
As to Boris, I would prefer an effective, efficient leader with some moral failings (within reason) as opposed to the preachy, woke, desperate to let everyone know they occupy the moral high ground, politician or politically hopeful. I think most people are like that. They care about inflation and the standard of living, being able to support themselves and their families.
I think there are very interesting discussions to be had on the concept of privacy and the sex trade.
Other people choosing prostitution or stripping as a form of employment doesn’t bother me at all but I would never call for its destigmatisation because I would never encourage those dear to me to become sex workers and my attitude towards sex work is clearly stigmatising.
Fair play. Im sure most are like that too, based on many thousands of doors Ive knocked on in my more active political days. Hence saying your response reflects the prevailing mainstream. And yeah, I guess it could be unbearable to think too long about how tough it is right now to be on min wage with 10% inflation. (Though for age 23+ min wage went up by a record amount in April, which was expected to be inflation busting back when Boris helped get the rise in the queue last year.) Good thing about unherd is a greater than normal share both below & above the line seem to care about that sort of thing. E.g. writer Mathew Crawthord is great on how low pay / manual work can still be dignified & rewarding in his Shop craft as soul craft. Best writer on this was probably my mistress Simone Weil, in her ‘The Need for roots’, where she talks about how with the right outlook (& often support from the boss class) both Factory & Farm workers can have their working lives lit up by poety. And permeated by that one love even greater than eros, the love of God. Though there can be eroticism in several minimum wage jobs. To give a non obvious example, said farm workers could see the wind blowing across the fields as caresses for a lover. And even tiltiliating when it seems like the wheat is being dragged by her golden hair into the dark wood beyond. Though as you say hard to capture that in a pic.
This working woman has got her name out there so maybe good for bookings. Hot from Paris eh! Ooh la la. Are these ladies really “in control” with the dafty men at their mercy. Only they are the ones.cavorting about while the stupid men have got the money,the cash or whatever,about them,in their pockets,in their wallets,under their control. I don’t call that being powerful.
I have the book Wanting You to Want Me, and have just reread Bex’s two contributions. The authors and publishers should, perhaps, have given the contributors the chance to see their interviews, but they must have been perfectly well aware that anything they said might be published, and Bex’s apparent belief that she expected any resulting publication to be no more than a pamphlet seems decidedly odd. Anyone with any experience of the media (and she appears to have some) will be well aware they publish or broadcast anything and everything they like, and be careful about saying anything they’d rather not be seen or heard by others. (The publishers do black out club names, including the one in Soho where Bex worked, but utterly pointlessly, since its name is visible in photos, and even if it weren’t, no-one who knows it would have any difficulty in identifying it from the photos and description as the oldest and best-known such place there.)
Bex is obviously intelligent (she got a law degree, she tells us), but her interviews come across as sadly crude, with irritating frequent repetition of a word I won’t quote, since maybe Unherd bans it – three times in one paragraph, including twice in two lines. She says at the end of her second interview: “All I want to do is get my tits out and make money”, and that is not something I would consider in any way reprehensible; on the contrary, I would strongly defend her or any woman’s right to do so, with, of course, her full, free, voluntary consent. But don’t complain when things you obviously knew would be made public appear in public. I entirely agree with Mikis Hasson: “She was an adult, she gave the interviews voluntarily like everybody else and she should have made sure or put terms on the agreement rather than ‘assuming’. She is no victim, just another person not taking responsibility for her choices and actions and looking for someone to blame”, and his words could apply to many other women who make money from sex and then moan about how much they regret doing it.
would any person in possession of his faculties, pay to watch others eat a gourmet lunch or dinner? … no… ditto strippers..
Woman gives interview she regrets, not least because she wasn’t paid for it. I have to fight back the tears.
So stripping can now ‘serve as a launchpad to greater things‘ such as activism. There’s an interesting thought. Activism as a self-publicising career move. Who knew?