THIS IS WHY OUR MEN DESERVE BETTER

As sex workers, we are supposed to hate our clients. According to anti-sex feminists, moral zealots, and our government – clients of sex workers are sick, twisted, perverted, hideous, dangerous, evil, woman-hating criminals who deserve to be publicly shamed, outed, and despised. In my first year of university after high school, my Women's Studies instructor showed us a movie called, "Not a Love Story." It is a National Film Board of Canada production that follows a stripper through her day-to-day life, and uses the footage from that experience to demonize the adult entertainment industry, framing the story as a redemption journey of a degraded stripper who learns how harmful to women the sex industry really is.

I was too young to question the premise that if she already works in the “exploitative” industry, why would they need to convince her? I also didn't question the fact that the woman in the movie was far from timid or weak. She was a strong, in-control-of-herself, intelligent, compassionate woman who didn't seem "too degraded to know what's best for her." I didn't question how the film producers attempted to shame the female stripper or how they completely ignored that men are sex workers too. I swallowed the tall tale; hook, line, and sinker. It was a "killer" story, because framing our industry this way gets us killed. But that's a topic for another day.

When the film ended, some of my classmates sat quietly crying. Others had to leave the room at various points. The film portrayed the sex industry as a place where women go to be abused and brainwashed, without addressing the cult-like, coercive actions of the film producers. It portrayed men as powerful, evil but stupid exploiters who deserve nothing but our contempt. At the time, I was not a stripper yet. Nor had I learned to question academia yet. I was young, naïve, and easily influenced by propaganda.

The indoctrination system had me in its grip until a few years later, when I had become a silent stripper in another Women's Studies class. I was trying to understand why my experience as a sex worker didn't match the experience that feminism had taught me. One of my TA's led me to a book called "Whores and Other Feminists." It was an anthology of works produced by various sex workers from different parts of the industry. It included both empowering words about working in the sex industry and sad stories acknowledging the harms that occur in the context of sex work. I was deeply impacted by everything I read, but one thing in particular really blew my mind and changed how I view men forever. It was a quote by Nina Hartley that said:

Through my experiences stripping, I learned many valuable lessons. I learned that my body was attractive to many different men, even though I am many inches and pounds away from any magazine model … Finally, I learned that to be eternally mad at men's sexual "nature" was as useful as being mad that water is wet.

Until the moment I read those words, I had been trying to despise my strip club customers. It wasn't easy because the majority of them were super sweet. But because of my early "training," I knew men were evil, disgusting, and perverted. It's not like I formed those thoughts in my head while I was working. They simply lurked under the surface until I read that quote. That was when I realized that I had been taught to hate men. At the moment I read Nina Hartley's words, a feeling of relief came over me suddenly and profoundly. I didn't have to hate my customers anymore. I could appreciate them. I could love them. Wow. What an epiphany.

Fast forward to the day I give birth to my son. This precious, perfect, beautiful, innocent little soul is going to grow up to be an evil pervert, I thought. Just kidding, I didn't think that at all. My instinct was that I had to protect him from people who thought like that. I knew that I would raise him to be polite and respectful to all people. Holding my son in my arms, I knew in my heart that most mothers do their best to raise their boys to be good men. It isn't mothers who were fucking up our men, it is a society that refuses to help men heal while concurrently demonizing men for being unhealed.

By the time my son was born, social media was a thing, and it was obvious to me that men are indeed a socially-acceptable target for venomous attacks. I remember feeling shocked at how many people felt completely comfortable saying horrible things about "men" without anyone batting an eye. It seemed to me that men were becoming "the enemy" in our society and no one cared if they were discriminated against because of it. If people said the same things about women, they would have been crucified. But it was acceptable to call men all kinds of vile names and accuse them of all kinds of vile things.

I was working in a transition house at the time. It was a program for women and children fleeing violence. We understood homelessness to be "violence," so many of our residents had addictions and homelessness challenges. Occasionally, a woman would reach out to us because her family was losing their housing. We could place her and her children but we could not place her husband. Any male child over 12 allowed into the house had to go through a criminal record investigation. It felt disgusting to assume all men and boys are abusers but that was the culture of that "feminist" housing program. I remember one resident telling me that she lied about her husband abusing her so she could get off the street. She didn’t know that we viewed homelessness as violence.

My colleagues and I, who were largely Indigenous mothers who loved the men in our lives, often had conversations about how the social systems in our society were reactive and only served to help women and girl children. We saw the gaps in the system where boys and men were completely left to fend for themselves. Our program was located next to a crack shack, which wasn't a great situation for our residents with drug addictions. But watching the men, young and old, walk past our house each day tore my heart to shreds. They looked lost and hopeless. I wished we could do something for them, if even just to offer them a plate of cookies. But of course, I couldn't do that. I would have gotten fired for doing something like that.

One day, there was an event being held at the Vancouver Public Library by an anti-sex feminist organization. They were showing the film, "Not a Love Story" and I decided to attend the screening with a couple other dancer colleagues to see what my experience of the film would be like now after years working as a stripper and coming to love the men in my life and work. We didn't announce our "stripperness" to the facilitators or the other guests. We watched the film quietly. Afterwards, the facilitators asked for people's impressions. We continued to stay quiet as we listened to the civilians in the room talk first.

Like those many years back in my university class, some of the women were visibly shaken. The men looked dutifully chastised and ashamed. As comments went around the room supporting the views portrayed in the film, I was especially sad to hear the men expressing their shame for being men. That's when I spoke up. I asked the facilitators if they thought it was good to shame men, if they thought that it would help men to do better. Heads nodded around the room. I was told that not only was it good to shame men, but it was necessary and that men deserved it. I think they weren't as concerned about helping men do better as they were about abolishing the sex industry. Their desired goal was to shame men into submission in order to eliminate demand for sex services.

I decided to educate the people in the room about the film we'd just seen. I had learned since my first viewing that the woman in the film was shocked and horrified at how she was portrayed; she felt violated, humiliated in front of her colleagues, and ashamed for trusting the women with the camera crew. I told them that I was a stripper who had experienced empowerment in my work and that the men who paid for the roof over my head and food in my cupboards by accessing my services were some of my dearest friends. My colleagues and I were respectful and the civilians and facilitators in the room were respectful, but it was obvious that they looked at us like we were brainwashed victims.

Ironically, I was asked to be interviewed for a National Film Board of Canada documentary years later. The producers assured me that they wanted to get a balanced perspective. They filmed me in the strip club dancing on stage and at one point asked me if I was comfortable taking my shirt off. I was not. That had not been the deal. I’d been told they were paying me for my interview only.

I was nursing a newborn at the time and the money was appreciated but I wouldn't have done it if I'd known they were going to exclude all their interviews with sex workers and produce a widely-distributed film that portrayed all sex industry clients as predators. The film was called, "Buying Sex." It was another violation of our trust as a community. Our true, lived experiences were completely ignored in the pursuit of their fabricated agenda. Our clients were once again portrayed as evil perverts. Meanwhile, they had tried to pay me to show my tits. Hypocrites.

Now, with many more years behind me, I realize that the greatest harm that comes from vilifying and shaming the men in our society is that it has stripped them of their humanity and it divides us as humans and families in the most terrible ways. I refuse to be a part of that harmful cycle of abuse. It's wrong and it's causing mass harm, not just to men and boys but to women and girls too because we have been socialized to reject the unique beauty of the men in our lives. And yes, part of men's natural beauty is their love and desire for women.

I'm not trying to minimize the evil actions of some men, like rape and other forms of violence or abuse. But if we are to truly heal our abusive men, shaming and destroying them is not the way to succeed. We need to rebuild our boys and men by showing them how to be good men. We need to show them how to heal and contribute meaningfully to their families and society. Shaming people just because they were born with a penis is disrespectful. My son deserves better. My clients deserve better. I know that we can all do better if we open our hearts and learn to love our men again.

To love our men again, we must first deconstruct the stigma-created stereotypes about men that have been perpetuated by anti-sex feminists and people who hate men. We are quick to call out misogyny. We must become quick to call out misandry too. Men are not innately evil as many anti-sex feminists would have us believe. They are human beings who, like women, go through positive and negative experiences that shape them. We must provide more positive experiences to shape them. A society that shames can only amplify their pain. It won't help them to heal.

We must also begin to judge people based on their own individual actions rather than painting an entire sex with the same brush. When I look at the state of society, I see just as many broken women as there are broken men. In the transition houses I worked in, we were taught to explain away abusive women as them simply reacting to abusive men. We gave them excuses and cosigned their bullshit. We didn't hold them accountable for the part they played in their abusive relationships.

I believe that the way feminism has encouraged women to embrace their victimhood is another way that our society is suffering. I refuse to be a victim. We need to take control of our own destinies just as much as men need to. Blaming and shaming will not heal us. It only fuels the fire of our anger towards men. We say it is victim-blaming when we hold women accountable for our own lives. But the sad fact is, no one can save us but ourselves. Unless we are children with no control over our decision-making, we must hold ourselves accountable for our own lives and our own healing.

We also need to stop punishing people, male or female, for needing connection and intimacy and then having the audacity to pay for it. Not only do we demonize people for seeking intimacy from consenting sex workers, but we demonize the people who dare to sell intimacy and sensual services. Anti-sex feminism has created a good girl / bad girl dichotomy in our society where sex workers clearly fall on the bad side; while our men are considered all bad because they represent the reprehensible patriarchy.

Somehow, we completely ignore that men are sex workers too and that the patriarchy is an institution that cannot be destroyed by fighting against the men in our lives. The patriarchy is a system that doesn't take into account or value the essential parts of womanhood because it has been created by men. Let's make our systems better by including and valuing women without excluding and devaluing men.

Finally, we need to redefine manhood, not as toxic masculinity, but as a protective, productive, supportive, cohesive role in families and society. We need to stop telling our boys and men what not to do and start telling them what to do. I suggest we begin with Stoicism. I believe Stoicism should be taught and practiced daily from elementary to graduation to boys AND girls. It is a philosophy of using our rational minds and controlling our reactions to danger signals we are faced with in our daily lives. Stoicism can teach boys how to become men and girls how to become matriarchs in a patriarchal society. If there is any school of thought that has the power to change our society for the better, it is Stoicism.

If you're feeling indignant towards my views on this topic, I apologize. I do not mean to dismiss or invalidate your experiences. I know that many of us have gone through hell because of the broken men that we've had in our lives, including me. Obviously, abusive men do need to be accountable for their actions. I'm not saying that we give them a free pass. I'm just saying that the belief that men are inherently abusive and that my clients are pervs and predators is a myth that has been constructed to divide us. By focusing on healing our men, rather than marginalizing them, we can build stronger families, enjoy better relationships with men, raise happier children; and as sex workers, we can love our jobs and appreciate our clients. It is a win-win-win-win situation with everyone winning. Spread love, not war, friends.

Love Annie xoxo