A view from the field: sex work in D.C.

Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS) is a non-profit organization that has over ten years of experience doing outreach to sex workers in the D.C. area. Utilizing a harm reduction model, HIPS provides comprehensive services and unconditional support to assist youth and adults on the street in identifying the skills they need, or already have, to make healthier life choices for themselves. HIPS services include counseling and referrals for sex workers and their families; mobile outreach and education, including training former or current sex workers as peer educators; and client advocacy, such as helping clients obtain an ID card or find emergency shelter. Three nights a week, from 9:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m., HIPS staff and outreach volunteers distribute safer sex materials and provide education, counseling, clothing, and food to sex workers on the streets through the mobile outreach program.

IT'S NOT ACADEMIC

Before riding in the outreach van, all HIPS volunteers go through an extensive orientation, and I began my training in December 2004. Although I was a new volunteer, I had some academic knowledge about sex work. While studying abroad in Amsterdam, I had the privilege of taking a class on the local and global complexities of prostitution. Class discussions frequently returned to the debate surrounding whether to treat sex workers as independent decision-making agents or as coerced victims.

At the HIPS orientation, we were asked to place the stories of different people exchanging sexual services for money on a continuum from forced to voluntary. While I was aware that a street prostitute working for an abusive pimp has fewer choices in her life than, for example, a high-end male escort, I was willing to argue that even she has some sense of self-determination and perhaps a small amount of power to wield through the manipulation of johns and other pimps.

Many of my views about sex work, even from an academic standpoint, haven't changed, but I came to realize that research and training could only prepare me to a certain extent. I actually had to be out on the van and interacting with these men and women to understand how complex their lives are.

My first time out on the van was a warm and rainy spring night. Early in the night, we pulled up to a cluster of women huddled under umbrellas on one of the strolls. I was expecting the rain to have put everyone in a sour mood, especially people whose livelihood depended on how many johns were out cruising, but the women were laughing and poking fun at each other. Most of these women worked for the same pimp and one of them, who was a bit older, probably in her mid-thirties, seemed to be the leader of the giggling group. After some of the other women had moved away, she joked a bit more with the leader of our outreach team; they seemed like old friends. As the turned her back to the van, she held her umbrella to the side, made a little twirl and exclaimed, "I love my job!"

Despite believing that sex workers are rational decision makers, I had imagined them as depressed and angry women scowling at all who passed. It had not occurred to me that I might be witnessing enjoyable moments--friends frolicking in the rain--in the lives of people who exchange sex for money.

In addition to providing me with a deeper understanding of exactly how sex work functions outside the artificial setting of the classroom or HIPS office, my time on the van has also challenged some of my assumptions. Probably the most commonly held and least challenged assumption is that most sex workers are young women. While I knew enough not to expect to run into the Pretty Woman stereotype on the streets of D.C., I was surprised to find that the HIPS clientele is roughly 1/3 women, 1/3 transgender women (1), and 1/3 men. Close to half of these sex workers are over the age of 24, and the overwhelming majority are African American. In D.C., as elsewhere throughout the country, working with sex workers clearly illustrates the pervasive race, class, and gender disparities in our society.

Because our clients already faced so many daily obstacles, I expected them to treat HIPS volunteers with some level of skepticism or, at least, indifference. It didn't make sense to me that our largely African American clientele who were working long hours on the street would want anything to do with a van full of mostly affluent white people (it does help, however, that HIPS volunteers are generally ready and willing to poke fun at their whiteness). Additionally, I understood that even in cities like Amsterdam, where women pose in windows next to churches and preschools, the stigma of being a prostitute is still a very real aspect of sex workers' lives. I knew that HIPS made over 8,000 contacts a year, but I assumed there would be a large number of people who would never approach the van because they did not identify as sex workers (or as someone who would need our services) or they were afraid to be discovered.

During outreach, my expectations changed quickly, as I learned that HIPS was well liked among the community it served. Clients would run up to the van, stand in line, flag us down, call our hotline and tell us where to meet them, praise our work, and sometimes hang out for a few minutes to chat with us. This is not to say that everyone feels comfortable approaching the van. The men, in particular, often have a much larger social stigma to overcome, and we occasionally have to engage in coaxing conversations just to have them walk away with a few condoms. Still, the overwhelming majority of our clients are happy to see us.

A WILLINGNESS TO RE-THINK

In my limited time on the van, it has become very clear to me that the harm reduction approach we use pays off. Because we meet the sex workers where they are at--both literally with the van, and figuratively with all of the information and services they need, but no judgment--we reach more people and provide more services to make lives safer.

For me, HIPS has been a way to connect my interests in sociology and sexual health with the reality of the gaps in services in my D.C. community. And it has helped me reach the conclusion that you cannot fully comprehend the depth of a situation strictly through policy or academia. Coming face-to-face with the diversity of sex workers' experiences made me re-think many of my assumptions.

I believe that it is this willingness to rethink assumptions and a non-judgmental attitude that are the keys to doing meaningful work with stigmatized and at-risk groups such as sex workers.

1. Here a transgender woman refers to someone born male who identifies or presents herself as female.

Maxwell Ciardullo

Public Policy Assistant

SIECUS 

Washington, DC