How to be a classy visitor to a strip club with expert guest Elle Stanger, CSE

Going to a strip club is a great way to expand your erotic life but we have heard from tons of couples who feel a little nervous about it. Even if you've gone before, going as a couple might feel different. In this episode we talk with Elle Stanger, a s*x worker (yes, we have to get creative with spellings around the internet these days) and AASECT Certified Sexuality Educator about strip club etiquette, treating erotic labor as work, and how to be a decent person in relation with sex workers.

This episode is a ~~ MUST LISTEN ~~ Whether you are chomping to hit the clubs or are just curious about how erotic labor can be made safer for everyone involved your ears are in for a treat.

Please listen to (and share) Elle's podcast at www.theytalksex.com for more perspectives on s*x wrk from someone who knows.

The following transcript was generated by AI, so enjoy the AI-flavored word choices and unconventional spellings of names.

How to talk about s*x work

Joli Hamilton
Al, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so glad to get to talk to you.

Elle Stanger
Thank you for having me, Dr. Joli, Hamilton and Ken.

Joli Hamilton
It's a total pleasure, not just because we are colleagues. But also because you're my favorite voice, our favorite voice on some issues that I think don't get talked about frequently enough. You are. I already said it in your intro, but you're in a sec certified sex educator, who is also a sex worker, right? Like, this is not something we get to talk about frequently because of all the gatekeeping. But we're gonna get into it today, I want to talk about your stuff, like what you bang a drum about, so that our audience can learn from you, because they know they're ready for it.

Elle Stanger
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you pointing out that I am certified and a longtime sex worker, because when I started training, I didn't even know if I would be able to get certified. Because I didn't know if they would discriminate or say it was unethical. So I remember being in training and like starting, you know, when you get that, like excited bubbling of ideas, I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great to one day be able to teach therapists and other educators about horror phobia and the impacts of hatred or derision about sex workers or the work? The word homophobia I just realized I use and like didn't even introduce it, because I'm so used to talking about this stuff. So Hora phobia is the hatred or derision of sex workers or their related activities. So yeah, thank

Joli Hamilton
you for naming. Yeah. And thank you for naming it. So whore phobia. Like right off the bat, let's just start by saying the audience probably listening has never heard that word. Because I mean, it's a word I only heard a couple years ago, and I've been doing sex ed for a long time. I think word,

Elle Stanger
it's so I have a word for it. Yeah, definitely. And it's a word I only heard probably like six or seven years ago. And I've been a published new model since 2005. So that's like, 17 years now. And I've been dancing nude for 13 years as of June of this year. So it's really amazing. We're getting a lot better at having language in the last decade, I've noticed.

Joli Hamilton
There's the trick. If we have language for it, it can become something we talk about. And I am here for making everything talk about audible. And when we when we talk about horror phobia, I think we can't overlook how it has it is just our culture. It's the water we swim in, in this particular American culture. So I want to just say if somebody out there is thinking, like, What the heck are they talking about? There's no horror phobia going on in my life. Yeah, it just wait. Right? It's so a part of the air we breathe and everything that you probably don't even notice it.

Ken Hamilton
That's why it's so important to have a word for it right to have a word that encapsulates the things that people didn't even notice was happening.

Elle Stanger
And I would say, sit with me and listen to any top 40 songs for half an hour or an hour or watch any TV, especially on heavy rotation. And I would be able to be like for phobia poor, and I'll have some examples for you later if we want to go into it. Yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge that sex work has always existed. Even in bartering economies, I will argue it will always exist because people trade touch for other services all the time. Some people call it marriage, some people, you know, like, yeah, um, I have said time and time again, I would definitely give a hand job, you know, protected and consensual for someone to do my dishes sometimes, because I just don't I do that

Joli Hamilton
all the time. That's

Ken Hamilton
established

Elle Stanger
as just standard issue. So but sex work is so more than hetero interactions, I have to say some of my most valuable interactions and clients were other female people, women, people who were transitioning people who were experimenting with their queerness in a safe way for the first time. I've had so many women tell me like, wow, you your breasts are the first I've ever touched besides my own. Or, you know, also people that just needed some kind of transactional interaction where, for example, an example that I use is I had a client who had a partner that was dealing with some suicide ideation and actions and then she did actually complete suicide and I was the first person he told because he wasn't ready to tell his family yeah, because you're acting judgment, that's Yeah, and that's transactional intimacy. It's kind of, you know, similar to when I tell my therapist all the things and then I pay her and then she wishes me well, and we plan to do this again. And then I leave, you know, I don't bother her like later in email. So transactional interactions happen all the time. And it's not just about obviously, genitals. And people do consent to transactional interactions all the time because it feels safer, or it's chosen so I really any listeners that have this knee jerk reaction to sex work and are in favor of trying to criminalize it or abolish it. Number one, please don't because there's real value in these interactions. And then number two, criminalizing or trying to abolish something actually just drives the workers deeper underground, and makes police more likely to be able to arrest them, harass them, extort them, anybody who was a history buff, think about prohibition in America, you know, 100 years ago, we're gonna go, oh, well, that went, right. Or the war on drugs in the 70s. Let's heavily criminalize this. And it had the most impacts on poor people that were already marginalized. So yeah, thanks for having me.

How to support s*x workers

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, I, I'm so grateful because this conversation can't happen without courageous people like you who are willing to not only do the work, but then come out and talk about it, and deal with the fact that most of us, so I don't live in that world. And so I could just put blinders on, I could just pretend that it doesn't exist. You are standing in the crossfire, as it were. And I really can't thank you enough, because you opened my eyes all the time to Oh, yep, that's for phobia, or how am I using my language in ways that will harm others? Like some of what you're talking about? We don't have to, we don't have to even take a pro or con stance on things. If we could just say, Hey, I don't have to agree with everyone, to let them live in peace. Let them be safe. So this can be really, really simple. If you're not interested in sex work. Cool, then don't pay for sex.

Elle Stanger
Don't Don't don't pay for sex. If you're not interested in sex work, don't watch porn, right? A lot of people enjoy watching other people have sex, we find it stimulating and motivating and, you know, ideas and it's meant to be entertainment, but it can give you some ideas for practices you would like to try with your partner's consent or bring up you know, but a lot of people forget that the people who made those videos were either doing it because they wanted to share creatively, or they wanted to make money and or they wanted to do both. Some people go into porn, because they see it as a reasonable, maybe attractive type of work they can do to lift themselves out of generational poverty. Right? I know. And I work with a lot of people who started some of them started doing sex work when they were underage illegally, whether that was a fake ID at 17 working in the strip club, or whether it was being unhoused and selling sex or hand jobs for rides or shelter. Or it was someone you know, as soon as they turned 18, like signed with the biggest porn production company became a worldwide star for five years like, and a lot of these people, they wanted opportunity. And they looked around and realized they were attractive enough to leverage what they look like. And also some people can do amazing things with their body. So some of the porn I see I'm like, I can't do that. I can't someone's like, do you do anal? And I'm like, yeah, maybe like once every five years.

Joli Hamilton
Right? But the let's let's just say that's athletics. I mean, so pole dancing. So like these are these are athletic events. And being able to do those things with your body being able to do double penetration, like being and then to sustain it for what it takes to shoot a scene. That is a feat.

Elle Stanger
That is yeah, see sage, Jesse sage as a sex worker. I think she's safe do textual at Twitter, and we don't know each other. But she said something the other day about strippers being the athletes of the sex worker world. And I was like, thank you. Porn Stars a lot. Similarly, we could say the same. I worked with a DJ who it was so great of him. And I was actually it's funny. I was driving reflecting on this this morning, because I was like, Man, I wonder where that DJ is now because I miss them. But it happens quite commonly in the strip clubs, that people I will be watched by 100 people an evening and make hardly any money because everyone's like, Wow, you're so amazing. Beautiful, strong, athletic, graceful. No, I don't have any ones. No, sorry. I just came in here to get a beer. Oh, you have to tip people. strippers don't make hourly wages. I don't want to make hourly wages. Personally, I don't want to be an employee of the venue. There's a lot of disadvantages for some people. And I won't go into that because that's a whole other like labor discussion. chin and some people might disagree or agree with me. But personally, I work for tips from people that want to be touched by me talk to me, you know, laugh joke with me hug me watch me dance. And some people will shell it out when they can afford it. But the problem is most people think all strippers make exorbitant amount of income. So they won't tip them at all. Or they'll do things like try to film us while we're working to show their friends. Look, we're in a strip club. But so it gets really, really Yeah, it's really not cool. And it's really it makes sense how plenty of my co workers myself might work a six hour shift and dance for dozens of people who compliment us over and over again. But I left with $20.02 Tuesday's ago.

Joli Hamilton
days ago, people like this. This is I think this is a great conversation, because we've talked about, you know, how to have a threesome, how to how to schedule a sex party. But an even more straightforward, I want to have something more exciting in my partnership is let's go to a strip club together rates. Let's do it. Well, let's do it really well. So how much money should someone go to the strip club with? And like a really basic question.

Elle Stanger
Thank you so much. So classism aside, because you'll get people that will be like, Oh, don't go if you're not going to drop a bag and a bag is $1,000. And I'm sorry, most of us that's not in our budget. So I actually posed the question I said, Do I said strippers and clients? How do you feel like what's the minimum? And I would say a very comfortable answer was at least $200. If you're going to go to a strip club, especially as a couple, because first of all figure out if there's a door entrance fee, some places it's $1. Some places it's zero, some places might be 20 bucks, you know, the drinks could be $7, the drinks could be $30. strip clubs vary quite a bit around the country around the world. And they are impacted by social attitudes and legislation. policing. So what else? Don't be afraid to ask and ask multiple staff like bartenders or bouncers? Because let's be honest, some people are dishonest. But it can be good to ask the folks who work here like, what's common practice, like if I sit at that stage? Do I have to tip in some places? No, you're not supposed to actually import Portland and in Oregon, it's completely the opposite. If you're sitting at the stage, please tip the dancer. I had a group of five, six women One of them's getting married. This was last Friday, four of them sat at the stage and then the other two side of the stage, but then they put their purses down in their chairs and went to go get drinks and two other guys came up who wanted to tip me and I was like, oh, yeah, sit there. versus some of the women were pissed. I got like, $8 out of a group of six women who were there for 15 minutes. Yeah, I got $25 You're not off the hook. You're not off the hook. You're not special. I'm working. Right? So understand that all of the people who showed up to dance, they probably number one are paying the venue to work there. They're probably paying.

Joli Hamilton
They're probably paying the venue to work there. So think of that, like, I have to pay a venue if I want to have a craft booth. Thanks. So yeah, so be serious about this. Like, of course, we raised money to tip

Elle Stanger
right, if there's a general saying over here in Portland, staring is stealing. So for example, I can still think of the one man who sat clutching his $2 PVR. He got three of them. He was there for six hours. He didn't have a single dollar. Because it's free dancing. It's free nudity to him. This is entirely unethical. It feels really gross. I feel exploited when people refuse to tip me but they are determined to stare at my naked body dancing. It feels like shit. It feels like shit. Women do it all the time. People do it all the time. Women tend to do it more because they're like, I have a vagina. What's the difference? I've heard that on stage. Oh, bless you, too. So the DJ that I worked with that I forgot about, but he used to say, he said if you can't do that, you should tip like, Wow, that's amazing. $1 is nice. So please bring money. Second big etiquette. Please don't film or take pictures. It's actually a misdemeanor in a lot of states to record someone in a state of nudity or undress. Whether or not you're planning on sharing that. Please don't post it on Snapchat or Instagram or you know, whatever. This happens a lot. Um, please don't touch without asking. You might see it happening. But you don't know the relationships that those workers might have. Or just because you see it happening doesn't mean it's comfortable and welcome, right. I had a woman on my last shift. She was an elderly woman. She came in looked around wanted to ask me about my tattoos. I really don't want to have that conversation for the 800th time for free. So I evaded her a little bit. I said, I'm going on stage in a minute, if you would like to watch me dance, she stood at the back of the room and watched me dance and she didn't give me any dollars. And then on the way out, she's like, Okay, well, I'm leaving now. And I said, Okay, have a good night. And she goes to just pet my arm. Just just a little swipe. And I like moved out of the way because I was irritated. She says, what? And I said, I'm sorry, I don't like being touched for free. Have a good night? Yeah. Okay. That was a very uncomfortable interaction. So thank you for asking. I hope people just learned a whole bunch of little nuggets of what to not do.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, I just I just to sum up, I say this. From my own perspective, just, I try to bring money to tip commensurate to how well I'm doing to like I'm having to, like, so I have a baseline that I will go with. And if I'm having a good week, seller, you there's no reason not to see this as a time to celebrate being alive together, like this person is onstage. Dancing. I'm excited. We're in a state of euphoria. I think that is, I mean, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. It makes me so happy to get to share space with someone doing what what they're capable of. And the let me enjoy it like,

Elle Stanger
worse? Bless you. We need those audience members. Yeah, we've talked about conversion. You've talked Persian? Yeah, I have to say I, I experienced that sometimes, like third hand, I don't know what the term would be. But like, there was a married woman couple a couple of weeks ago, and they got a couple of songs for me. And I always ask couples in the beginning and strippers or sex workers or, you know, couples, this is a good one to remember have an idea of who you want to be interacted with more with the provider. So I will ask people, am I splitting my attention to 5050? Or who should I focus on more? Love that, right, because either the, the couple will be like, Oh, we don't know, we didn't talk about this. Or they'll be like, huh, or 5050. So that's a good way to kick it off. That's a really nice way for people to be accountable from the beginning. And that means all of us. So if I'm accidentally focusing way more time on one of the persons, and I don't realize the other person is becoming steaming jealous because I didn't ask them where I should be. That's one way to avoid it. But in this case, so I asked this lesbian couple, I think they said about 7525. At first, it was for the main, the main lady who followed me online, I believe they came in to see me, which can be really fun. I encourage listeners to come in and interact with me, because it'll feel just more positive for both of us. And then after the first dance, the other wife was becoming more comfortable and aroused. And she said, she said, I have never seen you touch someone else. But I'm not even jealous right now. Like actually really like this. i She said, I didn't think I would enjoy seeing you touch someone else so much. And so then I asked at the beginning the second song, I said, are we still doing 5050? Or and she's like, No, you think I'm a little more? Yeah, I felt their conversion. I felt it too. And I'm not even in their relationship. It was lovely.

Joli Hamilton
There's the thing, I think we don't get to talk frequently enough about how transactional interactions can help us stretch our boundaries can help us play at the edges of what might feel okay, or not. Okay.

Ken Hamilton
I was I was thinking about the transactional part of it, like the transaction helps define and clarify the boundaries. And if I go in, and I don't pay any money, I can convince myself that, like, I'm not doing anything, and I don't have to observe boundaries. And but as soon as you're like, Okay, here's money for what you're doing now. But but we had somebody has to make some kind of clear statement about what's happening right now. Right? Versus just walking is like, well, I'll just do whatever I want whenever I want. No, yeah,

Elle Stanger
totally. Totally. Yeah, it's definitely a way for both people to be more accountable. And that can be very beneficial. Because it's like, it's the line in the sand of we understand like, where this ends, hopefully. Yeah, right. If the lion wants to move, and the lion can move, I mean, my daughter's dad, he was a customer of mine. And I was at some point, yeah, and moved. I was like, huh, I don't think I want to charge this guy to interact with me anymore. I think I want to see him outside of work for free because I actually like him. Um, but then when he came into the club, he still wanted to visibly support me, and also literally helped me out so he could still throw a few bucks or sit at my stage. But we wouldn't act like a couple because then that would help other people would be like, oh, something's happening over here. I should sit down. Or he point out like, oh, this person went to the ATM. When we divorced, he ended up dating another dancer, and he's really, really good at dating dancers. I raised him. Well. Thank you. And my second really, really significant partner, Brian, who is now deceased, he was also a customer of mine. Brian died by suicide a year and a half ago. So I'm still dealing with your feelings. Right? Right. Um, but Brian used to call me his dream girl, because he had been jerking off to pictures of me since I was naked on the internet. And he was actually in high school. Sure. High schoolers get on the internet. I mean, I was looking at porn of adults when I was a teenager to playboy. Exactly. So you know, teenagers have interest but I so the story was that he had seen me online. You know, I wasn't the only girl I'm sure he was joking to to a person, but which is great. And when you recognize me, he's like, Oh, that's model name. And he was a quiet, polite tipper for few years until I noticed him. This was after my divorce. And I remember giving this guy dances and I thought, wow, he smells really good. Like, really good. Like, I think I want to like bend the rules here. A little

Joli Hamilton
pro tip hygiene before they were the club. I mean, that's the magic ingredient. I'm sure Brian felt good to you specifically, because pheromones are real. Yeah, but also hygiene. Yeah,

Elle Stanger
yeah, that's the other thing hygiene. You're not going to get a good dance if you went to like Burning Man and come turn covered in sand. That's something Yeah, someone did that. To me once they're like I've been burned at Burning Man for 11 days, and they were covered in sand. I was like, air dance, baby.

Joli Hamilton
That's an injury waiting to happen.

Elle Stanger
Yes, some people that construction workers will come in, they'll be like, just you know, I might have fiberglass on these pants. And it's like, Ah, I'm grinding my journey on you now. Yeah, no, one's Kubis if we're being

Joli Hamilton
really specific.

Elle Stanger
So thank you for Yeah, hygiene is a good one. Also, in the touching, I said earlier, ask before touching everyone has different touch boundaries. Of course, I worked in one club for about a decade where I didn't let people hardly touch me at all, because that was the venue rules. And I wanted to be in line with the venue. So I could continue working there and not piss people off or get fired. But I work in different venues now, where more touching is allowed. So I have a client who touched my boobs for the first time in like a decade. Of course, I charged a little more because you're getting work. Um, but you know, every, every person is different. I just just asked, and some people will be offended by the asking, unfortunately, and some people will not. For example, if someone's like, Can I touch your bush? You know, 10 years ago, I might have been like, no, but today, I don't think that's an unreasonable question, because I do all types of work and how is this person going to assume my boundaries? So I like to say ask, you know, obviously ask before touching. There's no guarantee your interactions might not be awkward, but I'm here to make them less awkward.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, there's the thing. Practicing our words doesn't mean we won't be awkward. If you're awkward, though. You stand a chance of getting what you want. If you if you aren't willing to brief that awkwardness and then you really can't I think

Ken Hamilton
lifetime awkward person. Generally you are really, absolutely say that silent, awkward is always 10 times as awkward is verbal, awkward.

Elle Stanger
I love that it helps to know ourselves. Yeah. Um, I want to before I definitely want to follow your plans for the episode. I remember we mentioned some language examples. Yes. And also, so there's two things so media is really difficult for me to consume. Music can be really difficult for me to consume. It's really an interesting feeling being on stage and the person is singing about pimping out women or putting them on the corner and I'm like, God, I like this tune, but not the words. I cannot stand Tina Fey Tina Fey hate sex workers if you follow her writing and a lot of her entertainment. She always looks down on sexually prolific women. There's a lot of dead hooker jokes and 30 Rock. I have a hard time. Yeah. So a lot of it is just really like, oh, you know, when I see examples of what seems really, really minut but then it leads to things like sex workers losing custody of their children, because they're perceived as ignorant or dangerous interests or damaging or something or damaging. Or when I see and hear from other sex workers who Whoo, you know, people are fine to spend time with them and have sex with them and like ask for money, you know, date them, but not tell their family. Like, oh, my family won't let me marry a stripper. So this has to end or I don't think I could date someone in your lifestyle. But let's hang out all the time, you know, and I'll eat the food. So some examples of language and horror phobia. So civilians, folks, friends, please stop using the word whore as an insult. You know, like, you're acting like a war.

Joli Hamilton
This one, because I actually have to remind my own teenagers there that like they have teenage banter, right. And so that is one of the things we'll hear just tossed around our house and I'm a big fan of just like, I don't know, swear, whatever. I don't care about it. Yeah. Like this. We just had to have a conversation about this, because I heard you say, and I thought, oh, there's an example. In my own house. I didn't catch it until I heard you say like, it's not an insult. It's a job. It's right. It's like so when we when we make it an insult. We're like, what are we doing there?

Elle Stanger
Right. Yeah, so So examples. Yeah, examples could be like, you're acting like a horror, you look like a whore. Go back to your home on horror Island, which is from that silly, silly movie. Um, okay, so right. So if there's nothing wrong with being a bore, where are we using as an insult? Similarly, like, when I was a kid, when I was growing up, that was definitely a common insult and we didn't even understand what it meant, you know? So I understand how that's still the case. Um, can't turn a ho into a housewife a lot of civilian women love to refer to themselves as hoes when what they actually mean a slip.

Joli Hamilton
So let's embrace the word slut that yeah, you're exactly you're being

Elle Stanger
study. You're being sexually prolific. But I think what happens is people It feels exciting to feel naughty and counterculture. But if you're not actually a whore, like a person who works sex for money, if you're not someone who has ever sucked a dick for money, use a condom, by the way, the flavored ones. I don't refer to myself as a hooker. Because hooker is usually a term a slur used for women that are socio economically on the bottom, and might be working outside. So streetwalkers. I have never worked outside. And I have only straddled the poverty line and slept out of my car a couple of times. So I don't call myself a hooker, I call myself before. I don't call myself a hoe because I'm not a black sex worker, specifically.

Joli Hamilton
That that, like now we're doubly marginalizing people, right, or CO opting words that are being used by people who, who are using them for other things. Right.

Ken Hamilton
Um,

Elle Stanger
let's see what else. Yeah, the whole the horn one is really interesting. I definitely. After the Whap song came out what else bussiness starts out, there's some horrors in this house. Okay, so a lot of what they rap about, they're talking about sex that can be pleasurable, but it's also transactional, they're talking about the dudes, their fucking are giving them money, they're buying them shit. And a lot of relationships are like this. So and there is a history of black women talking about doing sex work to survive. And this lives in rap. And it makes sense. But when we see white civilians mimicking it, it's so cringe. And the example is I go to my friend's house. She works in like Bitcoin, I love her. But she's not a sex worker never has been. She has a sign in her garden. Like it says, there's some horrors in this house. And I was like, all that's really sweet. But number one, that's not true. Right, you and your daughter. And number two, you couldn't actually put that on, I wouldn't put that on my door, because that is a target on my back. And people do hate sex workers. And they do seek them out and target them for violence, or theft, or harassment, or extortion or outing. So those are just some examples where I think people don't really understand the gravity of the words they use. And then also, they don't live with the discrimination that sex workers they might live with, depending on what kind of work they do. So I'm only able to talk so much about my work and these issues because I'm a more privileged worker, because I do mostly legal work in venues like strip clubs or hosted on websites that do all the proper verification. So the big ones like Pornhub, and Cam soda and my free cams. You know, like

Why decriminalization is good for everybody

Joli Hamilton
enable, you've been able to leverage your privilege, no. And and and then from there, what I want you to do and the reason I respect your work so much is because I watch you use that to inform us about, like, what's going on? And I don't want to leave this conversation without saying, first, you just need a whole bunch of ways that actual horse can be harmed if we don't watch our language. So yeah, and there's an even bigger issue at hand all the time. Because the arguments around decriminalization vs. Legalization versus their I know there are a million ways this the Nordic model, there are so many ways to talk about what do we do, if we do want to move away from the idea that the transactional sex is bad? The next place people go usually is to okay, we need to legalize it and regulate it. Mm hmm. Tell us why that thing.

Elle Stanger
I love that you've been paying attention. I love that you're so up to up to snuff on on these issues. So. Okay, so legalization will always create very strict regulations about who is allowed to do sex work, when and where. And this can look like what it looks like in America is the brothels in a few of the least populated counties in Nevada. These counties have legalized brothel keeping and working in brothels. So that means if you drive to the middle of the desert, and you can afford to work in a brothel where they'll take like 40% of your earnings, or your client that can afford to go there and pay probably 1000s of dollars for it to be worth it to the workers and the venue, then you are not arrestable. If that structure is not in place, you're still arrestable. So that's why everyone, everywhere else in Las Vegas, if you don't work in those brothels, or go to them, you're still arrestable or subject to fines, harassment being detained by police being searched by police. And who do you think is very likely to be in danger of sexual assault when they don't have any legal recourse? It's people who are working sex on the streets who are runaways, or youth who are trans? who are people of color? Who are sex workers doing it illegally, that are absolutely not going to call 911 After they're raped by a police officer. Right? For help. Right? So now, help with no help. Exactly. So legalization will put restrictions in place that some people will not be able to adhere to, because of who they are. If I want to do sex work, if I meet a man in a bar, and we talk for a while and like he smells clean enough, and I take a peek at his ID and like his name matches what he told me and and he shows me you know that he does have the money and we agree to a rate and here's the place and I text my friend and say this is where I'm going. And so we use a condom and call me at this time if I don't call you. This is how I negotiated a way to make some money to feed myself for another weakness is what people do. So if we're trying to prevent sexual exploitation, trafficking, coercion, it makes sense that we only arrest the people who asked for help. I was robbed. I was raped. You know, this guy assaulted me or he took the condom off, which in New Zealand is a crime to crime, but not here. Only maybe parts in America. Yes. stealthing laws are just starting to come out. And we don't know how to talk about it. So yeah, right. So legalization is not the path to harm reduction. Two years ago, over 250 scientists from around the world who have studied the global impacts of sex work and criminalization made formal recommendations to Biden and Harris to fully decriminalize sex work in the United States along with other recommendations. Full decriminalization means that people who are working sex or paying for it are not arrestable. But statutes and laws that pertain to force fear fraud, coercion, or interacting with minors would still maintain New Zealand. Yeah, New Zealand did this in 2003. With the agreements that they would do follow up studies on the impacts on public health overall, they found that the amount of sex workers stayed about the same. They reported the same reasons that they enjoyed working or chose it, and that people working on the street or unsheltered actually went down. Let's

Joli Hamilton
underline that. Let's underline

Elle Stanger
that New Zealand,

Joli Hamilton
New Zealand shifted to a de Crim basis in 2003. That's almost 20 years ago. They've done follow up studies and those follow up studies have demonstrated that numbers of people working sex did not eat on the street did not increase nor did they decrease by It numbers of people being harmed, decreased homeless people being or like we're not seeing we're not seeing the the rampant uptick in No,

Elle Stanger
no yeah you never will Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized for about 20 years. In the 90s. Lots over Rhode Island, they accidentally decriminalized and their reported assaults and measured STI rates went down also. So, decriminalization afterwards, they did they they went back and re criminalized it even though public health impacts are better. So it's not debatable. It's not my opinion that decriminalization would be nice. It's been shown to have beneficial impacts. It's been recommended by literally over 250 scientists, there is testament in writing and podcast and TED Talk, Judo Mack, the laws sex workers really want is a great TED Talk. It's 17 minutes long, it explains from someone who's sold sex and plenty of different containers, how different types of criminalization impacts people. And just because you mentioned it before, I want people to be very clear that any type of partial d, any type of partial criminalization, that means the Nordic model, the so called end demand model, the Swedish model, the equality model, these all arrest clients, they all support the arrest of the buyers, and how do we as sex workers, number one make money when you're arresting our clients? Number two, why are we spending public funds on arresting and punishing and outing and shaming people in some cases who were looking for transactional, consensual touch, when that money could be used for actual rescue rehabilitation rights resources for people who need it and want it? It just doesn't make sense.

Joli Hamilton
It just doesn't. It's just not a good way to spend our public funds like those. It's just not I mean, I think right off the bat, a nice comprehensive sex education program from K through 12. Sounds like a great place to spend some of that money. And, and when I think about decriminalization, I think, Oh, we know a lot of a lot of our listeners understand that the war on drugs is a joke that it did not work. You know, we live in Massachusetts, where pot is now illegal. And we see exactly what is happening. And so the people that I interact with, they understand Oh, decriminalization makes sense, in some circumstances, and they haven't made the leap, I'm inviting you l is inviting you, again, is inviting you to make the leap, make believe and understand that what we're talking about is harm reduction. That's all this is like, if you want to like the logic works. The logic works. This isn't about an opinion anymore. And I really appreciate that. You said that this isn't your opinion, this is we have the data. We don't need to wait.

Elle Stanger
So exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you. And what you said earlier, too, if if sex work is not for you, then don't watch porn, don't go to the strip club. But you know, I don't eat a lot of fried chicken. So I just don't engage with fried chicken. I don't eat fried chicken like. And also something else that needs to be mentioned, a lot of the time these partial criminalization models are proposed because they say it will rescue the workers or help the workers. But number one, that's not the case. We've shown that partial criminalization also can impact workers in really unexpected ways. And I'll give you a quick little example. If you criminalize third party facilitators, that's a really boring set of words. So if a third party facilitator of some, okay, so if my landlord knows that I do illegal sex work, they cannot rent to me, they might just not rent to me, because if they know and they continue to rent to me, even if I'm not working out of my house, even if I'm working somewhere else, they have facilitated my prostitution, according to some people and maybe the law so this is a way that sex workers become unhoused. If my boyfriend our best friend, like I mentioned earlier, I might do a check in and say, this is where I'm going. This is when I'll be back. If they pick me up or give me a ride. They've just facilitated prostitution. Oh, so any kind of partial criminalization is garbage, no Nordic model, no quality model doesn't help people.

Joli Hamilton
This reminds me I I bring this up because it reminds me of something we talked about a lot in Massachusetts about more than about two decades ago, which is there were a bunch of us who were studying to be lay midwives, not certified nurse midwife, but lay midwives doing home births and I want to be attending a bunch of boroughs in Connecticut as a witness, because Connecticut had decided to legalize home birth, which meant you had to have a certified person, which meant that all the lay midwives who had been delivering in Connecticut now couldn't. Right. So now what was happening, people were having to make what was coming up enormous medical decisions based on a set of laws that didn't make any sense. And I wound up just being a witness. So I instead of going into Midwifery, I wound up staying on a witness for a while. So I would go and be the person who was just No, I was here, she gave birth, no midwife. Wow, that, you know, we're fine, where people were compliant. Because the midwives were at risk for being arrested. Even when everything went

Elle Stanger
perfectly Wow, even waste of money.

Joli Hamilton
What a waste of money and time and energy and, and brains, because some of the most brilliant midwives I know, got out of business, got out of that line of work, and stopped delivering babies healthily in this in this wonderful model, for the same reason, because it was just too risky to be that in that situation. And the reason I bring it up is because I know a bunch of our listeners were part of that home birth movement that was happening in the late 90s, early 2000s. And we cared about this, if we cared about that we should care about decriminalization of sex work. It's the same problem. It's the same problem. So

Elle Stanger
Right. And if you it's what's going to help the most amount of people is decriminalization of sex work, because when I speak to survivors of trafficking, you know, they didn't want to report that they were being trafficked, because they were afraid they would be arrestable. Even which happens all the time in Alaska, you have to prove coercion of your traffic or you have to prove it in order. Yeah, in order to be successful with that. There's only I think, Tara Burns is a great resource for information about this. She's a sex worker, writer and researcher. I know a woman, Amber bats is her name. She's she's out in media, she's been out in Alaska, she was convicted of sex trafficking herself. She was like 38, when she started working consensually, she was working with a couple other adults cheat served five years prison time for working sex. So what's gonna help the most amount of people is full decriminalization? And when I've talked to people who were youth, this is what I was gonna say earlier. They didn't report because their pimp told them, you know, who are they going to believe you or me, like, I'll just say you're lying, or whatever. And if they happen to live in a state, where you don't get arrested for working sex as a minor, so like Oregon, in 2019, passed a safe harbor law, where now if you're working sex, and you report that someone's forcing you to do it, you're not arrestable. Even if you're

Joli Hamilton
the bottom of the barrel, sorry, like, are you gonna I can't believe we have to pass a law for this. But okay,

Elle Stanger
yeah. Even if you live in a state where that's the case where those provisions might exist, those safe harbor laws, a lot of people don't know they exist. Because why would you want? And if if you've been trafficked through other states or arrested in other states, why would you think anything is different? So the cupcake girls.org is a really good resource to they work with survivors of trafficking and sex workers. And they're one of the few organizations that will do that, and won't actually ask sex workers to quit working in order for them to receive services. Because a lot of these religious nonprofits also they'll say, well, in order to get things like, you know, like a gas card and money and groceries or transportation, you need to stop working in the club, like, we're not going to help you. If you start until you stop, right,

Joli Hamilton
just jump off the cliff. We will build you some wings sometime before maybe you hit ground or you'll bounce and will maybe help them

Elle Stanger
or an abolitionist or a lot like anti choice people were they're like, No, you need to have this baby. We're not going to help you take care of it, but like you need to do this thing. Just do a thing.

Joli Hamilton
So if we if we just get down to the centrality of deep full decriminalization helps the most number of people, and nothing about criminalizing helps decrease sex trafficking, sex trafficking, or it already would have fixed the problem like we don't, we don't need to collect any more data. We don't need to ruin any more lives to know it didn't work. It's not working. It doesn't work.

Elle Stanger
It doesn't. Another resource before we go, I mentioned earlier media for people to really get an idea of how prevalent horror phobia is and also how much they've been lied to in movies. I would recommend it's horse on film.com, the director Juliana Piccolo, she produced this wonderful film that just blew me away. Trigger warning about 10 minutes in, there's about a minute of very violent movie scenes against sex workers like just a collection of them, I almost had to leave the theater. But the movie itself is very, very valuable and a wonderful tool for teaching.

Joli Hamilton
We'll make sure to get all the links, everything you've mentioned into the show notes so that people can access these as easily as possible,

Ken Hamilton
the more we can get our listeners access to what we can do to move forward toward decriminalization. Let's get there.

Elle Stanger
Thank you. That means a lot because the opposition is strong, and the opposition does not care about information because they really, really quite often just get kicked out by the thought of people having sex or interacting sexually for money, especially if it's not heteronormative to make babies. If I can say one last thing, a lot of misinformation that exists about sex work and tries to link it to trafficking is done by fundamentalist religious conservatives, who are anti queer, anti polyamorous, and really, really wants to abolish or criminalize sex work and want to punish the people that engage in it. And some of these people have the biggest names like Exodus cry is one organization. They are not research based, they are run by a couple of folks that I just described. And maintaining their image is very, very important to them, because when you blow the lid off and start to expose these people, it blows their argument out of the water National Center on sexual exploitation, or nc o s e.org. That might not be the website, actually, but NCIC is what it's for short, but National Center of sexual exploitation, they are also not research or fact based. They were started in 1962, called morality in media, and they would put Bibles on people's doorsteps and warned about the horrors of porn. They found out that that wasn't working for them in the 90s. So they changed their name to sound like people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about. And they always getting's everything. Marketing is everything, they'll always try to conflate sex work to sex trafficking. So it's frustrating the battlefields very uphill. So thank you for all your support.

Ken Hamilton
It's not a it's not a it's not a fight of persuasion. I mean, what I what I hear is that there, you can't apply logic to the conversation. It's not a debate, because it's not a thank you. That's

Joli Hamilton
yeah, and, and something else, I appreciate this conversation. So much, because for anybody who's feeling a little overwhelmed by by, like everything that they just heard, I have been, I've been a sex educator for decades now. And it is still I'm learning all the time, best practices to help my fellow humans. So it's okay to be learning this today. And to change your behavior or change your mind about an organization or take a new look at, oh, maybe some of this stuff that I have thought was anti trafficking is actually sex negative, stop, full stop, it's just sex negative, controlling, and it's not going to help. And it's okay to just to be to be a contradiction, and say, oh, you know what, I'm a hypocrite. Because now I changed my mind. Great, be that lean into it, it's totally fine. And you can now take what you've learned and have a more nuanced conversation about how you want to be in the world, everywhere from visiting a strip club, to how you interact with your legislation, how you interact with your friends, and how you talk about whores and the great work that they do in the world.

Elle Stanger
Exactly. And I'm letting you say hello now in this episode, but as we end a reminder to everyone's call a sex workers. Prostitutes is a legal term. And again, if a prostitute wants to call her salon prostitute, she gets to do that it's the same person, a trans person can use any slur they can re empower it. Black people use the N word re empower it themselves. Like these words are very special to the people who live these identities. So we just ask that you respect them. Love it.

Joli Hamilton
So I'm gonna model model good practices here. I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that I was using that word wrong. Let's all respect how sex workers move in the world.

Elle Stanger
Thank you, Joli. Dr. Joli. Hamilton, you're so good at modeling.

Joli Hamilton
That's it. Nice and simple. Thank you so much for joining us. I

Ken Hamilton
want to say one last thing to our listeners, which is I've been fairly quiet during this episode because I've been listening my ass off. Because I want to I I'm totally I mean, I've been I've been listening and watching what l has to say. And it's all just been great. It's been great to talk to you. And yeah, I want to I want to hear more and I want our listeners to know me and listen to this. This matters a lot to a lot of people.

Elle Stanger
Thank you.

Joli Hamilton
How thank you for your premiums.

Elle Stanger
Oh, yeah, I Please listen to my podcast. They talk sex. It's on Spotify kind of hard to find.

Joli Hamilton
Find it. Yeah, we'll link it to

Elle Stanger
they talk sex.com You can find me on Instagram. I'm not deactivated yet at stripper writer. When I started that account, I was mostly just dripping. Now it would probably be worker writer. Um, I want to say thank you to your project relationship book. Because after Brian died, and I started dating again, it was it was a rebuilding process and it still is. And my current lover partner is absolutely a totally different person than Brian was because obviously. So it's been a little jarring for me to figure out what my new normal wants to be and your books been really helpful. So thank you for project

Joli Hamilton
means a lot to me. And yeah, I'm so glad you're in the world. To me to you to have a love fest. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank

Elle Stanger
you, Ken and Joli. Thank you