XPost: rec.arts.tv, talk.atheism, aus.general
XPost: sac.politics
So ya wanna be a whore.
For most of her life in prostitution in New Zealand, Sabrinna
Valisce campaigned for decriminalisation of the sex trade. But
when it actually happened she changed her mind and now argues
that men who use prostitutes should be prosecuted. Julie Bindel
tells her story.
When Sabrinna Valisce was 12 years old her father killed
himself. It changed her life completely. Within two years, her
mother had remarried and the family had moved from Australia to
Wellington, New Zealand, where her life was miserable.
"I was very unhappy," says Valisce. "My stepfather was violent,
and there was no-one to talk to."
She dreamed of becoming a professional dancer and set up a
lunchtime ballet class at her school, which proved so popular
that a well-known dance group, Limbs, came to run lessons.
But within months she found herself on the streets, selling sex
to survive.
Walking through the park on her way home from school, a man
offered her $100 for sex.
"I was in school uniform so there was no mistaking my age," she
says.
Valisce used the money to run away to Auckland, where she
checked into the YMCA.
"I tried ringing someone to ask for help in the phone booth
which was outside the hostel, but it was engaged, so I waited,"
she says.
"The police stopped and asked what I was doing. I said, 'Waiting
to use the phone'."
The officers pointed out that no-one was using the phone, so
there was no need to wait. They thought they were being
"terribly clever" Valisce says - but didn't seem to understand
when she explained that it was the telephone she was calling
that was engaged.
"They searched me for condoms thinking I was a prostitute
because the YMCA was behind Karangahape Road, the infamous
prostitution area.
"Ironically, that was what gave me the idea to go get some
money. The police scared me but I knew I was going to be on the
streets if I didn't get cash, and the act of leaning against a
wall was all it took to be searched and threatened anyway, so I
figured it made no difference if I was or wasn't."
Valisce walked over to Karangahape Road and asked one of the
women working there for advice.
She pointed out two alleyways where Valisce could work. "She
also gave me a condom, told me basic charges and advised me to
make them fight for services I was prepared to do, to avoid
fighting against services I wasn't prepared to do. She was very
nice.
Samoan, too young to be there, and clearly been there for too
long already."
In 1989, after two years working on the streets, Valisce visited
the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) in Christchurch.
"I was looking for some support, perhaps to exit prostitution,
but all I was offered was condoms," she says.
She was also invited to the collective's regular wine and cheese
social on Friday nights.
"They started talking about how stigma against 'sex workers' was
the worst thing about it, and that prostitution is just a job
like any other," Valisce remembers.
It somehow made what she was doing seem more palatable.
She became the collective's massage parlour co-ordinator and an
enthusiastic supporter of its campaign for the full
decriminalisation of all aspects of the sex trade, including
pimps.
"It felt like there was a revolution coming. I was so excited
about how decriminalisation would make things better for the
women," she says.
Decriminalisation arrived in 2003, and Valisce attended the
celebration party held by the prostitutes' collective.
But she soon became disillusioned.
The Prostitution Reform Act allowed brothels to operate as
legitimate businesses, a model often hailed as the safest option
for women in the sex trade.
In the UK, the Home Affairs Select Committee has been
considering a number of different approaches towards the sex
trade, including full decriminalisation. But Valisce says that
in New Zealand it was a disaster, and only benefited the pimps
and punters.
"I thought it would give more power and rights to the women,"
she says. "But I soon realised the opposite was true."
One problem was that it allowed brothel owners to offer punters
an "all-inclusive" deal, whereby they would pay a set amount to
do anything they wanted with a woman.
"One thing we were promised would not happen was the 'all-
inclusive'," says Valisce. "Because that would mean the women
wouldn't be able to set the price or determine which sexual
services they offered or refused - which was the mainstay of
decriminalisation and its supposed benefits."
Aged 40, Valisce approached a brothel in Wellington for a job,
and was shocked by what she saw.
"During my first shift, I saw a girl come back from an escort
job who was having a panic attack, shaking and crying, and
unable to speak. The receptionist was yelling at her, telling
her to get back to work. I grabbed my belongings and left," she
says.
Shortly afterwards, she told the prostitutes' collective in
Wellington what she had witnessed. "What are we doing about
this?" she asked. "Are we working on any services to help get
out?"
She was "absolutely ignored", she says, and finally left the
prostitutes' collective.
Until then, the organisation had been her only source of
support, a place to go where no-one judged her for working in
the sex trade.
It was while volunteering there, though, that she had begun her
journey towards becoming an "abolitionist".
"One of my jobs at NZPC was to find all of the media clippings.
There was one thing I read: it was somebody talking about being
in tears and not knowing why, and it wasn't until they were out
[of the sex trade] that they understood what those feelings were.
"I had been through that for years [thinking], 'I don't know
what's going on, why am I feeling like this?' and realised when
I read that: 'Oh God, that's me.'"
For Valisce, there was no turning back.
She left prostitution in early 2011 and moved to the Gold Coast
in Queensland, Australia, seeking a new direction in life, but
was confused and depressed. When her neighbour tried to recruit
her into webcam prostitution, she politely declined. "I felt
like I had 'whore' stamped on my forehead. How did she know to
ask me? I now know being female was the only reason", says
Valisce.
Afterwards the neighbour hurled insults at Valisce whenever she
saw her.
Valisce began to meet women online, feminists who were against decriminalisation and described themselves as abolitionists -
the abolitionist model, also currently being considered by the
UK's Home Affairs Select Committee, criminalises the pimps and
punters while decriminalising the prostituted person.
Valisce set up a group called Australian Radical Feminists and
was soon invited to a conference. Held at the University of
Melbourne last year, it was the first abolitionist event ever to
be held in Australia, where many states have legalised the
brothel trade.
Melbourne itself has had legal brothels since the mid-1980s, and
although there is a lot of vocal support for the system, there
is also a growing movement against it.
She describes this period, when she became a feminist activist
against the sex trade and began to feel free of her past, as
"the start of my new life".
"I exited first emotionally, then physically and lastly
intellectually," she says.
After the conference Valisce went to a doctor and was diagnosed
with PTSD.
"It was as a result of my time in prostitution - it had affected
me badly, but I was good at covering up the effects," she says.
"It takes a long while to feel whole again."
For Valisce, the best therapy is working with women who
understand what it's like to go through the sex trade, and those
who also campaign to expose the harm prostitution brings.
She is also determined to ensure that the women who are usually
silenced by their abusers have a voice.
"It's not my goal to trap people in the industry or tell anyone
to go get out," she says. "But I do want to make a difference,
and that means speaking out as much as I can, in order to help
other women."
Julie Bindel is the author of The pimping of prostitution:
Abolishing the Sex Work Myth
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41349301
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